GLBT Week Ended August 30, 2012
BY ANN ROSTOW
Tampa On My Mind
It pains me to watch the Republican convention, but as a political junkie, I have no choice. It’s like being an alcoholic when the liquor store is closed. You’re stuck with the crème de Cassis that’s been sitting in the back of the bar for a couple of years.
Even so, I resisted much of Tuesday’s opening acts, flipping over to MSNBC for several minutes of angry rhetoric from the second and third string speakers before returning to a taped copy of “Nine to Five.” Finally, I forced myself to watch Ann Romney’s pretty good speech, and Chris Christie’s self-serving train wreck of a keynote.
Small aside: My computer tries to convince me to type “Ann Rostow” whenever I type “Ann Romney.” A little disturbing.
How do people like Christie get away with accusing Democrats of being “divisive” in the course of making a divisive speech?
“Those un-American bastards on the other side keep trying to divide this nation! Let’s send them back to Chicago and take this country back!” A paraphrase perhaps, but he did suggest “taking back the country.” Taking it back from whom?
And how about the calls for “bipartisan” leadership from a group that represents the most intransigent opposition in modern history? Do they think we’re stupid?
All and all, I await the Democratic convention like an overdue shipment of vintage Champagne (to continue the analogy).
For the record, the analogy stems from an actual incident when our group of election watchers drank through the contents of two Manhattan apartments on election night in 1980. Reagan was bad enough, but as New York Democrats we also had to stomach Al D’Amato ascending to the U.S. Senate. That last defeat led us to finish a bottle of unidentifiable alcohol that had been collecting dust under the sink for longer than we could remember.
Moving on, it feels as if the News Train has paused in Tampa and New Orleans for a week, leaving the GLBT passengers stranded with nothing to talk about it. But there was a little sumthin sumthin. Namely, a bunch of pranksters at Continental Airlines who removed a dildo from a gay man’s luggage, covered it with lube and attached it to the outside of the suitcase as the bags arrived on the conveyor belt in Norfolk, Virginia. The man and his partner are filing a lawsuit.
I’m not sure whether the sophomoric antics can be laid at the feet of the airline, or the TSA agents who have been given the intrusive power to rummage through our stuff at will. News reports blame Continental baggage handlers, but why would they be looking inside customers’ suitcases? In either case, I see this less as an attack on gay men, and more as a reflection of a certain idiocy that pervades our post-Millennial dumb-and-dumber society.
--
Angels in Tasmania
We are making progress towards marriage equality in New Zealand, Tasmania and France, which is very nice for gay people who live in New Zealand, Tasmania or France.
Some guy attacked someone with a hammer for calling him “gay.” And I was reading about a Christian former elementary teacher from Joshua Tree, California, who was nailed for abusing a number of young boys back in the day.
Normally, I’d jump on that last story, but the scenario is no longer an ironic oddity. It’s actually pretty common for sick molesters to wrap themselves in antigay and/or evangelical vestments. I’d go further and say that these days, if you’re a gay or lesbian adult, born after Stonewall, and you’re living your life in the closet, you’ve got a problem.
Perhaps you live in a conservative or highly religious environment. I won’t judge you. Maybe you live in a rural outpost. Or perhaps you’ve been in the service. Fine. It’s understandable to pretend to be straight.
But barring these reasons, if you’ve been a grown up over the last couple of decades with a good sense of your sexual orientation, the closet is increasingly a strange choice rather than an acknowledged necessity of life. And adults who not only stay in the closet but present themselves as antigay despite their same-sex attractions are truly screwed up.
--
Can’t Put a Lid On It
Listen. Are any of you stuck with the theme song to the “Mr. Lid” infomercial rolling around in your head? I think I’m particularly susceptible to internalizing advertising jingles. I was haunted by the “five dollar foot long” Subway song for months and months. Now it’s Mr. Lid. It swirls around my head in the early hours of the morning before I’ve completely woken up.
“Mr. Lid…
“It’s safe in the microwave!
“Mr. Lid…
“Etc. etc.”
I think part of the problem is that I know that I have this inclination, so my fear of being overrun makes it happen. I read a book by Oliver Sacks about various mental disorders that manifest imaginary music and I think, were I to suffer the appropriate brain injury, I would have those symptoms. Even now, without having had a stroke to my knowledge, I fantasize music and believe, for example, that I hear my cell phone ring when the device is silent.
If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can replay the full orchestrated “Intermezzo” of “Manon Lescaut” in my mind. Or whatever I want to hear. So I ask you: Why do I subconsciously decide to wake up with “Mr. Lid” instead of Puccini? I think the answer isn’t pretty.
--
The Print Run
Every other week I get to set my own deadline, and as luck would have it I decided to delay this column by a day in favor of watching the U.S. Open. It turns out that I am a very lenient editor. Who knew?
I read this morning that some GOP conventioneers threw peanuts at a black CNN camerawoman, yelling that this is how “animals” are fed. The offenders were thrown out of the event by Republican officials, and CNN is looking into the disgusting incident.
In other revelations from the morning newspapers, there was a profile in the Times Style section about Bianca Kosoy, the 40-something creative director of the Equinox fitness chain, a tattooed, scotch-drinking lesbian who sounds like someone you single ladies might look up on your next visit to the Big Apple.
And finally, my own hometown rag, the Austin American Statesman, informs us that UT sociology professor Mark Regnerus has been cleared of scientific misconduct by a committee that looked into his controversial study of gay parents.
Well, fine. Perhaps the good professor technically followed the rules, but his study compared stable straight households with families in which one parent came out of the closet and left or divorced the other parent. Not surprisingly, the kids from the broken homes fared worse than the other cohort.
--
But Enough About Me, Not
I have to admit that the RNC stepped up from Tuesday’s smarm fest to Wednesday’s red meat. Huckabee and Rice were excellent (and of course I’m talking about style not content) and Paul Ryan put on a good performance as well.
Susana Martinez, by contrast, relied on the now familiar theme of “All About Me” in an ego-driven speech that poured cold water on the electricity Huckabee had managed to spark. (He’s gained a lot of weight, don’t you think? You remember that at one time, Huckabee managed to lose a hundred pounds.) As for John McCain, did we really want to put U.S. ground troops in Libya? Do we want to wage war on Assad? Do you think we should fly bombers over Tehran? Frightening stuff from the weathered veteran.
I just hope the Democrats resist the urge to bore us to death with irrelevant autobiographical tidbits and personal chest thumping.
Moving on, the marriage equality campaign in Washington is planning to spend something like five million smackers in the run-up to the statewide vote in November. The other side has a tenth of that money on hand, so while optimism is always dangerous, I suppose it’s not misplaced in the Starbuck State. When last I checked, our side had about 50 percent approval and the other side was in the low 40s.
Still, as the saying goes, once bitten, twice shy. And we’ve been bitten how many times? Dozens. I’ve lost count. So, as far as predicting victory for marriage in Washington, Maine, Maryland and Minnesota, I’m very very very shy.
--
Pass the Crazy Juice
California has banned reparative therapy for gay kids as the Golden State continues to lead the country when it comes to GLBT legislation and policy.
By the way, I’m watching cable news as I write, and I have to interrupt myself to observe that Cindy McCain is looking a thousand times better than she did in 2008. It’s all in the hair.
So here’s an NPR blog headline that caught my eye: “Some Gay Republicans See Platform Setback as Sign Victory is Near.” Say what? Not only does the GOP platform include a federal amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would ban same-sex marriage, it also recommends that we go back in time to prohibit openly gay men and women from serving in the military.
Meanwhile, as you probably know, not only does the Democratic platform call for marriage equality and an end to DOMA, but the Obama administration itself considers sexual orientation discrimination presumptively unconstitutional. As such, the Justice Department has sided with gay couples in our legal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act. In addition, Obama policy calls for immigration officials to refrain from deporting foreign gay spouses, although the government does not offer spousal green cards.
According to NPR, however, the fact that GOP platform authors were so adamantly antigay is interpreted by some of our brothers and sisters on the right as a signal that the fight for gay rights is heating up in some positive way.
"When you back someone into a corner, they fight back twice as hard," explained Casey Pick of the Log Cabin Republicans, who went on to admit that the platform was “ugly and harmful.”
Quoting Gandhi, Pick found the bright side: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
Really, Casey? With all due respect to the father of Indian democracy, there are several unmentioned stages between “fighting you” and “then you win.” These include many decades of vicious antigay bigotry from the evangelical base that spent an extra generation or two deciding that African Americans should (in theory) have equal rights.
You don’t have to be a single issue voter to wonder how sane members of our community can shrug off entrenched bigotry and sing the praises of a party that prides itself on pegging us as perverts. Please! Maybe the adjective “sane” is a tad misplaced.
--
arostow@aol.com
BY ANN ROSTOW
Tampa On My Mind
It pains me to watch the Republican convention, but as a political junkie, I have no choice. It’s like being an alcoholic when the liquor store is closed. You’re stuck with the crème de Cassis that’s been sitting in the back of the bar for a couple of years.
Even so, I resisted much of Tuesday’s opening acts, flipping over to MSNBC for several minutes of angry rhetoric from the second and third string speakers before returning to a taped copy of “Nine to Five.” Finally, I forced myself to watch Ann Romney’s pretty good speech, and Chris Christie’s self-serving train wreck of a keynote.
Small aside: My computer tries to convince me to type “Ann Rostow” whenever I type “Ann Romney.” A little disturbing.
How do people like Christie get away with accusing Democrats of being “divisive” in the course of making a divisive speech?
“Those un-American bastards on the other side keep trying to divide this nation! Let’s send them back to Chicago and take this country back!” A paraphrase perhaps, but he did suggest “taking back the country.” Taking it back from whom?
And how about the calls for “bipartisan” leadership from a group that represents the most intransigent opposition in modern history? Do they think we’re stupid?
All and all, I await the Democratic convention like an overdue shipment of vintage Champagne (to continue the analogy).
For the record, the analogy stems from an actual incident when our group of election watchers drank through the contents of two Manhattan apartments on election night in 1980. Reagan was bad enough, but as New York Democrats we also had to stomach Al D’Amato ascending to the U.S. Senate. That last defeat led us to finish a bottle of unidentifiable alcohol that had been collecting dust under the sink for longer than we could remember.
Moving on, it feels as if the News Train has paused in Tampa and New Orleans for a week, leaving the GLBT passengers stranded with nothing to talk about it. But there was a little sumthin sumthin. Namely, a bunch of pranksters at Continental Airlines who removed a dildo from a gay man’s luggage, covered it with lube and attached it to the outside of the suitcase as the bags arrived on the conveyor belt in Norfolk, Virginia. The man and his partner are filing a lawsuit.
I’m not sure whether the sophomoric antics can be laid at the feet of the airline, or the TSA agents who have been given the intrusive power to rummage through our stuff at will. News reports blame Continental baggage handlers, but why would they be looking inside customers’ suitcases? In either case, I see this less as an attack on gay men, and more as a reflection of a certain idiocy that pervades our post-Millennial dumb-and-dumber society.
--
Angels in Tasmania
We are making progress towards marriage equality in New Zealand, Tasmania and France, which is very nice for gay people who live in New Zealand, Tasmania or France.
Some guy attacked someone with a hammer for calling him “gay.” And I was reading about a Christian former elementary teacher from Joshua Tree, California, who was nailed for abusing a number of young boys back in the day.
Normally, I’d jump on that last story, but the scenario is no longer an ironic oddity. It’s actually pretty common for sick molesters to wrap themselves in antigay and/or evangelical vestments. I’d go further and say that these days, if you’re a gay or lesbian adult, born after Stonewall, and you’re living your life in the closet, you’ve got a problem.
Perhaps you live in a conservative or highly religious environment. I won’t judge you. Maybe you live in a rural outpost. Or perhaps you’ve been in the service. Fine. It’s understandable to pretend to be straight.
But barring these reasons, if you’ve been a grown up over the last couple of decades with a good sense of your sexual orientation, the closet is increasingly a strange choice rather than an acknowledged necessity of life. And adults who not only stay in the closet but present themselves as antigay despite their same-sex attractions are truly screwed up.
--
Can’t Put a Lid On It
Listen. Are any of you stuck with the theme song to the “Mr. Lid” infomercial rolling around in your head? I think I’m particularly susceptible to internalizing advertising jingles. I was haunted by the “five dollar foot long” Subway song for months and months. Now it’s Mr. Lid. It swirls around my head in the early hours of the morning before I’ve completely woken up.
“Mr. Lid…
“It’s safe in the microwave!
“Mr. Lid…
“Etc. etc.”
I think part of the problem is that I know that I have this inclination, so my fear of being overrun makes it happen. I read a book by Oliver Sacks about various mental disorders that manifest imaginary music and I think, were I to suffer the appropriate brain injury, I would have those symptoms. Even now, without having had a stroke to my knowledge, I fantasize music and believe, for example, that I hear my cell phone ring when the device is silent.
If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can replay the full orchestrated “Intermezzo” of “Manon Lescaut” in my mind. Or whatever I want to hear. So I ask you: Why do I subconsciously decide to wake up with “Mr. Lid” instead of Puccini? I think the answer isn’t pretty.
--
The Print Run
Every other week I get to set my own deadline, and as luck would have it I decided to delay this column by a day in favor of watching the U.S. Open. It turns out that I am a very lenient editor. Who knew?
I read this morning that some GOP conventioneers threw peanuts at a black CNN camerawoman, yelling that this is how “animals” are fed. The offenders were thrown out of the event by Republican officials, and CNN is looking into the disgusting incident.
In other revelations from the morning newspapers, there was a profile in the Times Style section about Bianca Kosoy, the 40-something creative director of the Equinox fitness chain, a tattooed, scotch-drinking lesbian who sounds like someone you single ladies might look up on your next visit to the Big Apple.
And finally, my own hometown rag, the Austin American Statesman, informs us that UT sociology professor Mark Regnerus has been cleared of scientific misconduct by a committee that looked into his controversial study of gay parents.
Well, fine. Perhaps the good professor technically followed the rules, but his study compared stable straight households with families in which one parent came out of the closet and left or divorced the other parent. Not surprisingly, the kids from the broken homes fared worse than the other cohort.
--
But Enough About Me, Not
I have to admit that the RNC stepped up from Tuesday’s smarm fest to Wednesday’s red meat. Huckabee and Rice were excellent (and of course I’m talking about style not content) and Paul Ryan put on a good performance as well.
Susana Martinez, by contrast, relied on the now familiar theme of “All About Me” in an ego-driven speech that poured cold water on the electricity Huckabee had managed to spark. (He’s gained a lot of weight, don’t you think? You remember that at one time, Huckabee managed to lose a hundred pounds.) As for John McCain, did we really want to put U.S. ground troops in Libya? Do we want to wage war on Assad? Do you think we should fly bombers over Tehran? Frightening stuff from the weathered veteran.
I just hope the Democrats resist the urge to bore us to death with irrelevant autobiographical tidbits and personal chest thumping.
Moving on, the marriage equality campaign in Washington is planning to spend something like five million smackers in the run-up to the statewide vote in November. The other side has a tenth of that money on hand, so while optimism is always dangerous, I suppose it’s not misplaced in the Starbuck State. When last I checked, our side had about 50 percent approval and the other side was in the low 40s.
Still, as the saying goes, once bitten, twice shy. And we’ve been bitten how many times? Dozens. I’ve lost count. So, as far as predicting victory for marriage in Washington, Maine, Maryland and Minnesota, I’m very very very shy.
--
Pass the Crazy Juice
California has banned reparative therapy for gay kids as the Golden State continues to lead the country when it comes to GLBT legislation and policy.
By the way, I’m watching cable news as I write, and I have to interrupt myself to observe that Cindy McCain is looking a thousand times better than she did in 2008. It’s all in the hair.
So here’s an NPR blog headline that caught my eye: “Some Gay Republicans See Platform Setback as Sign Victory is Near.” Say what? Not only does the GOP platform include a federal amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would ban same-sex marriage, it also recommends that we go back in time to prohibit openly gay men and women from serving in the military.
Meanwhile, as you probably know, not only does the Democratic platform call for marriage equality and an end to DOMA, but the Obama administration itself considers sexual orientation discrimination presumptively unconstitutional. As such, the Justice Department has sided with gay couples in our legal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act. In addition, Obama policy calls for immigration officials to refrain from deporting foreign gay spouses, although the government does not offer spousal green cards.
According to NPR, however, the fact that GOP platform authors were so adamantly antigay is interpreted by some of our brothers and sisters on the right as a signal that the fight for gay rights is heating up in some positive way.
"When you back someone into a corner, they fight back twice as hard," explained Casey Pick of the Log Cabin Republicans, who went on to admit that the platform was “ugly and harmful.”
Quoting Gandhi, Pick found the bright side: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
Really, Casey? With all due respect to the father of Indian democracy, there are several unmentioned stages between “fighting you” and “then you win.” These include many decades of vicious antigay bigotry from the evangelical base that spent an extra generation or two deciding that African Americans should (in theory) have equal rights.
You don’t have to be a single issue voter to wonder how sane members of our community can shrug off entrenched bigotry and sing the praises of a party that prides itself on pegging us as perverts. Please! Maybe the adjective “sane” is a tad misplaced.
--
arostow@aol.com
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