While I was writing a paper, some gay marriage stuff happened.
Posted by ted on Apr 22, 2009 in academia, anthropology, apocalypse, homos, music, politics | 2,069 views | 3 comments
My light blogging over the last few weeks (months?) has been caused by the qualifying-for-candidacy process, which has claimed all of my writing time and ability. And guilt. But I just turned in a draft of my “area” paper — in which I say, “Look, some people wrote some stuff about AIDS and I read it” — and now I have some, for day or so, time to do a little blog post thing about what’s been happening while I was away. Mainly about gay marriage, because, well, it makes my blood boil more than anything else. I’ll do it in non-chronological bullet points because I have neither the time nor superhuman synthesis abilities of Frank Rich, whose Sunday column last week was, as the kids say, teh awesome. (For more on “teh,” I suggest Wikipedia.)
This weekend, my dad sent me this picture. He made the sign to hold at today’s public hearing on a marriage equality proposal at the Maine Legislature. Apparantly, the announcement on the proposal this morning was met with a standing ovation from a few thousand supporters of teh gayz. Anyway, when I posted the picture of the sign on Facebook, my friends went bonkers. So far, 34 people have “liked” it, and there are 24 comments on it, from “I have wet eyes” to “Fabulous!!! Your papa rocks, Ted!!!” to “Awesomest.” My pal Joe, of JoeMyGod and From Boys To Men fame, asked to use it on his blog, and that’s probably why some of you are here reading this. My favorite comment on Joe’s blog is “Ted’ dad definitely earned a Best Dad in the World t-shirt. Somehow, the fact that a straight man made this sign makes it all the more wonderful.” So: Yay for my dad!- Frank Rich’s column, in case you still haven’t read it, was in response to the, er, perfect storm of Iowa and Vermont legalizing gay marriage and the National Organization for [Straight Only!] Marriage releasing their silly, inflammatory “Gathering Storm” video encouraging people to treat gay marriage as the Apocalypse. Watch it; it’s kind of like an Ed Wood movie. While some commenters have pointed out that NOM (nom, nom, nom!) seems to be doing everything possible to scare people into violent attacks on boring gay couples like me and Rob — considering that the anti-gay movement, to which NOM is tied, has encouraged anti-gay violence in Africa — I think that anyone who wasn’t already contemplating taking a tire iron to Jack Twist is more likely to laugh at NOM’s utter stupidity before they did anything untoward. And considering that the video has as many parodies as the “Brokeback Mountain” trailer did, I have some un-scientific evidence to back that up. In fact, if you do a Google video search for “National Organization for Marriage,” the first page of results are parodies or withering criticisms of their ad, not their actual ad. Ha. The two best parodies (with “Gathering Storm Chasers” as a runner-up), as far as I’m concerned, are Colbert’s and this totally bizarre robot/LEGO one. The latter has some of the best lines, including, “The storm is coming. But we have fear, and hatred, to shelter us. Oh, and Jesus.”
- And, now, closer to home. At the Miss USA pageant a few days, Perez Hilton, who was bizarrely allowed to be a judge, asked Miss California about her feelings on gay marriage. She chose to tell the world that she thinks “opposite marriage” is the way to go while asserting that “Americans are able to choose one or the other.” Bigotry and lack of articulation aside, she didn’t even know that we aren’t able to choose one or the other, particularly in her own state. All the religious conservatives and useless pundits are claiming she lost the crown because she wasn’t being politically correct. That’s possible, but it’s also possible that she came across as dingaling who had no justification for her opinion other than “I was raised that way.” In her appalling display of bad sportsmanship over the next few days, she has asserted that she should have won but for the gay fascism, and she had the gall to go on the Today Show repeat the even dumber mantra of her San Diego Bible-thumping, logic-refusing, patronizing-beyond-belief neighbors, “It’s not about being politically correct. For me, it’s about being biblically correct.” Yeah, because the Bible has a lot to say about the legal recognition of civil marriage. Also, I think a former Miss Nevada, Alicia Jacobs, who was one of the judges this year, summed it up best by pointing out how dumb a contestant she was: “As she continued to speak, I saw the crown move further & further away from her. When she finished, she looked strangely proud for a moment. Personally, I was STUNNED on several levels. First, how could this young woman NOT know her audience and judges? Let’s not forget that the person asking the question is an openly gay man, at least 2 people on the judges panel are openly gay. Another judge has a sister in a gay marriage. Her very own state pageant director, KEITH LEWIS is an openly gay man who has been a very generous benefactor of hers.” Dumb, dumb, dumb.
And finally: Even though this is related to the Perez Hilton/Miss California brouhaha, it deserves a bullet-point all to it self. Miley Cyrus [hearts] teh gayz, and not in a “OMG! They’re so funny!” way. As Joe pointed out, “Mock Twitter all you want, but when the most popular teen star in the world says something like this, millions and millions of LGBT rights supporters are born.” I have misunderestimated her. Well, I still think her performances are utterly inauthentic, but I cannot deny her odd charisma. Also, I have more than once sung along to her songs. Sue me, bitches.
Tagged with Facebook, Frank Rich, JoeMyGod, Maine, Miley Cyrus, Miss California, my dad, National Organization for Marriage, nomming, Perez Hilton, Stephen Colbert
3 comments
I’m listening to the speakers in Maine. The anti-gay people are truly evil.
My dad’s probably going nuts! –Ed.
Congratulations on your choice of a father, he sounds really cool.
In some cultures it is believed that unborn children actually choose their parents, I’m not just being silly…
Ok, Ted, so where’s the t-shirt . . .
I need to tell you, now, about one of the Christian fascists here in town who had her sandwich board on the public right of way which alternates between messages about Friday night Bible meetings and advertisements for free estimates for computer repair, but which for a couple of weeks before the vote of the legislature’s approval of marriage equality had amessage citing the Biblical injunction for cleaving to one’s wife on one side and the “definition” marriage = one man and one woman. For several days I toyed with stealing the ‘w’ and the ‘o’ and mailing it back to them, but then I thought bearing witness before them would be better so I treid four times to knock them up but they were never home (out prosyletizxing??), but finally I found them (after the sign had come down, though) but a woman answered my knock and I told her the sign hurt me every time I went by because it said my youngest and my goddaughter were “less than” in their eyes, not equal, etc. etc. She wanted to argue, I said we could agree to disagree, but she needed to hear my witnessing my discomfort and my belief that what was posted was divisive and hurtful. Did I know Roman 1-27, she asked. I said sure, but did she know that Abraham had a hundred wives PLUS concubines? That’s the Old Testament, she said. Yes, I said (tongue in cheek) and I believe in both. Anayway, we had made our points and I went home and re-read Romans 1:27 and in fact all of 1. And that really pissed me off because what she was saying to me is that she wanted to hurt me even more by leveling Roman’s judgments about you and Becky as vile and evil and immoral. I can’t wait for the rapture and imagine their consignment to Hell for their unChristian behavior!
As you would say, Ted, heh heh . . .