Nancy’s Got A Secret

GLBT Week in Review January 25, 2012
BY ANN ROSTOW


Nancy’s Got A Secret

Many good Democrats are torn. By rights, President Obama should waltz to reelection if Newt Gingrich becomes the GOP standard bearer. But. BUT. Giant BUT. Is it worth the risk? Is it worth the slim chance that the fates would align to catapult the porcine egomaniac into the White House? Do we not have a larger duty as American citizens to root for Romney, even though he would make our lives more difficult in the general election?

I struggle with this question.

Recently, Nancy Pelosi has been making intriguing comments, signaling that she “knows something” that will disqualify Newt from higher office, and by implication, that the secret will not withstand the scrutiny of a campaign season. Gingrich, in turn, has replied that Pelosi lives in a “San Francisco environment of strange fantasies,” which coincidentally, is familiar territory to many of my beloved Bay Times readers. I’ve spent some time in that environment myself. It’s a fun place!

I also read that Newt divorced his first wife, Jackie, in part because she lacked the youth and beauty of a future First Lady. We also heard from that Nightline interview with his second wife, that Newt believed marrying Callista would help him become President of the United States.

The two pieces of gossip suggest that the man has been imagining himself in the oval office for decades. Further, if he is so image conscious, wouldn’t it have made sense to lay off the mashed potatoes and gravy for a year or so before throwing his hat in the ring? Remember, we didn’t have television back when William Taft was elected.

Finally, I keep thinking about the New York Times magazine story a few months ago, when Gingrich told the interviewer that he found solace last summer in his wife’s children’s book character, Ellis the Elephant. During those dark days cruising the Aegean, when his campaign hopes seemed shattered, the cartoon pachyderm was a “psychological oasis” and “a ray of light.”

What kind of serious statesman says something like this? Honestly.

I’m not rejecting the notion that fictional characters can provide us with inspiration. And to be honest, I’ve never read the book in question. But it’s a children’s cartoon book. It’s not an allegory.

There’s an infantile streak in Newt Gingrich, manifest in the feeling we get that his ambition and narcissism are based in insecurity not ideals. The multiple wives, the oblivious self-aggrandizing, the hedonism implicit in his girth and jewelry store bills—this is immaturity. There’s a little boy trapped inside him, so I suppose it’s not surprising that when the going gets tough, it helps to snuggle up to a make believe elephant, who, Newt told the Times, he would describe as “happy, positive, creative, interesting.” Enough said.
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So Tu, Barry?

Did you watch the SOTU last night? I only wrote that so I could use the somehow satisfying acronym. But of course we watched it, just as we watched the debate on Monday, as well as all the other debates and all the primary night coverage and all the Sunday talking heads and most of the pundits every other night of the week, not to mention Morning Joe every weekday and NPR on the ride home after work each day.

Yes, we are junkies. We even switch over to Fox News every now and then to relieve the tedium of hearing our own political views reverberating through our living room for the thousandth time. Sometimes, like drunks who fix a pot of coffee to recover for the next binge, we watch something off the DVR, like Kitchen Nightmares or NCIS.

“You call yourself a head chef? It’s RAW!”

At any rate, there were two gay women sitting in the VIP area during the State of the Union speech. One, an army major who will deploy shortly, and another woman who was part of a successful workplace sex discrimination suit. That’s nice.

As we all noticed, President Obama made only a passing reference to gays, but personally, the omission didn’t bother me. He made no mention of any of the so-called social issues, and indeed he basically skipped over large areas of the national agenda. Medicare, health care in general, Social Security, North Korea, crime, drugs---none of these received significant shrift.

I bet you’re wondering what “shrift” is. You probably think I know what it is because I just confidently used it in a sentence. But I confess I have no idea. Outside the context of the common phrase “short shrift,” the word is meaningless to me. Let’s look it up!

Turns out a “shrift” is a penance imposed by a priest during confession. The idea of a “short shrift” reflects the dilemma of prisoners facing imminent execution, who lack the time to carry out an extended ritual. In Richard III, Ratcliffe tells Lord Hastings: “Dispatch my lord, the Duke will be at dinner. Make a short shrift, he longs to see your head.”

As you can tell, the word shrift no longer fits neatly into the original sentence. You can’t say: “President Obama gave short shrift to discussions of entitlement programs.” In fact, since shrift is a noun, not a verb, we can’t even say “short shrift,” but should say, like Ratcliffe, “a short shrift.” Our conundrum is that the modern expression has transcended its 14th Century roots and now carries a meaning of its own, one nearly severed from its original sense.

Now we have two quandaries. Should we root for Newt? How will we employ the word “shrift” going forward? What’s a girl to do?
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Nervous In Seattle

We have some major news this week, news so important that it should have led the column. Yet, sometimes I can only dive into this weekly effort with a topic that sings out “Lead with me! Lead with me!” For whatever reason, Newt sang to me while the imminent passage of marriage rights in Washington State hummed quietly in the corner.

Yes, it seems to be true. I say “seems to be true” having been slammed in the past by reports of imminent passage of marriage rights that failed to materialize. But this time, we seem to be in good shape. We have the votes to pass marriage rights in the state house. We just won the deciding vote for equality in the state senate. And we have the enthusiastic support of Governor Christine Gregoire. Barring calamitous political bumbling, this will happen and it will happen soon.

I would be more excited were it not for the fact that marriage equality will almost certainly be sent to the ballot box for a public vote. The citizens of the Starbuck State have already shown their rainbow colors a couple of years ago by defeating a measure that would have repealed domestic partner rights in the state. Will they stand up for us when the subject is full marriage rights? I hope so. And speaking of Starbucks, the coffee empire joined Microsoft, Google, Nike and over 100 other state corporations in supporting our unions. Thanks People.

Meanwhile, marriage equality is also brewing in Maryland, the scene of last year’s failed effort. This time, with the help of Governor Martin O’Malley and a stronger organization, we may have a better chance of nabbing the 71 votes we need in the House of Delegates.

But as is the case in Washington, a legislative victory may well lead to a public vote in November. And although we could win such a vote in Washington, a victory in the Crab State would be more difficult.

Finally, it also looks as if marriage rights might emerge from the Garden State legislature if our side can drum up a veto proof majority. Last week, Governor Chris Christie said that if the legislature sent him a marriage bill, he would veto it in favor of a statewide vote on the issue. But lawmakers don’t seem inclined to put civil rights on the ballot, even though there’s a chance that gay couples might win one of these elusive marriage battles if given the chance in a progressive state. It seems more likely that we could override a Christie veto, but it would still be an uphill fight.

Don’t forget, we are also looking at an anti-marriage amendment vote in North Carolina this May. Then in November, Minnesota voters will try to amend their constitution to ban marriage, while Mainers may possibly take a proactive public vote on whether to approve marriage rights if activists decide to roll the dice and file for the ballot. Toss in Washington and/or Maryland and we’re in for another rousing election year. I know we have almost always lost these campaigns. But times are a changin' and we’re not going to lose them forever.
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The King’s Speech

I have other state legislative news, including some particularly nasty stuff coming out of New Hampshire, where lawmakers want gay women over the age of 21 to be tattooed on their earlobes with the letter “L.” That way, various wedding-related businesses in the state can identify them and refuse service under a special exception to the state civil rights laws. I’m not sure about the exact details, but it’s something like that.

Let’s just say that I’ve done enough on state legislative news.

I read, by the way, about an eight-month-old baby girl in Newark who came home from day care sucking a dead mouse. Really? Really day care workers?

By the way, since we mentioned a baby, I was reminded of the VW commercial with the guy who goes through his teenaged years and into adulthood looking for fast vehicles, only to change his priority to “safety” once he becomes a father. You’ve seen it, right? Is that not the ugliest baby you’ve ever seen? Why, I wonder, did VW’s ad execs go out of their way to find an angry looking ugly baby for their TV ad? Tis a puzzlement.

Oh. And the King of the Zulus allegedly said that gays and lesbians were “rotten,” during a speech in Nquthu celebrating the 1879 Zulu victory in the battle of Isandlwana. I said “allegedly.” A tribal spokesperson said that King Goodwill Zwelithiui’s remarks were “recklessly” translated.

The battle of Isandlwana was perhaps England’s worst 19th century colonial defeat, so I cannot imagine how the subject of gays and lesbians figured into King Goodwill’s text.
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Cruise Like A Lesbian

I’ve been saving the fun marriage ruling out of Minnesota, where a state appellate court reinstated a freedom-to-marry case and in so doing, put us back on the road to exciting legal news in the Land of a Thousand Lakes. Who knows?

The case, filed against a county clerk, now goes back to lower court and will make its way back up the ladder in the many months to come, so perhaps “exciting” is overstating the character of the litigation. But it sounds as if the unanimous three-judge panel told the court to take this case seriously, rather than blow it off by citing an old comment from the U.S. Supreme Court that was not only outdated, but also inapplicable to a state law challenge.

I fully intended to talk about that ruling at length, but I have since changed my mind. Why? Because I’m almost done with my column and it’s time to fix myself a cocktail and continue my last minute preparations for our Olivia Cruise.

I will be skipping my column next week as we bask poolside through the Caribbean, so I’m guessing that news will break out all over as it usually does as soon as my back is turned. Look for a Prop 8 ruling out of the Ninth Circuit, as well as progress from the state legislatures that we talked about earlier.

What do you think? Car IB ean? Or CARA be an? I’ll find out next week. Sea ya.
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Ann’s column is available every week on sfbaytimes.com. You can reach her at arostow@aol.com.