USA Today (8/28) has an article about how a straight couple have raised a non-homophoic daughter. Bruce Kluger tells of his 5-year-old daughter Bridgette illustrating the word “gay” in an exercise where she was to draw and label a word rhyming with “may.” She drew two men with big smiles with hearts above their heads. She’d been friends with her gay uncle since birth and other lesbigay family friends. Kluger points out that while liberal Americans often see the big picture in other issues (e.g. “We must curb TV violence for the sake of kids”) they seem to skip gay and lesbian issues. For instance the fact that Bridgette’s gay uncle was not allowed to adopt a cousin for her to play with. ” … as any 5-year-old can tell you, that’s just not fair.”
Newsweek (8/27) received 600 letters on its cover story r.e. the Boy Scouts ban on homosexuals. Only a few letters supported the ban. Sample quotes: ” … The Boy Scouts have disgraced themselves, offended millions of Christains and betrayed their nation and their oath.” “Although my recollection of the Scout Law has faded somewhat, I remember the words ‘friendly,’ ‘brave,’ ‘clean,’ ‘reverent.’ I don’t recall ‘intolerant,’ ‘ignorant,’ or ‘exclusionary.'” “The Boy Scouts are chameleon-like in their ability to change their status depending on the charges against them. When they want to discriminate against atheists they are a religious organization. When they want to discriminate against homosexuals, they are a private organization. When they want millions of dollars in federal handouts they are a public organization. The leadership of the Boy Scouts has earned its merit badge in hypocrisy.” “As a 15-year-old Life Scout, I support the Boy Scouts decision to ban homosexuals, but I don’t see it as an excuse to be hatefull. I realize it is still my duty to help elderly lesbians acrosss the street.”
The Village Voice (9/4) has a number of gay articles. One “Queer as Folk Dance” hints, in a review of a Cambodian dance troupe in New York, that one reason the Khmer Rouge nearly wiped out all of the dancers involved in Cambodia’s traditional art form was that “both the dancers and the works themselves were so free and easy in their variant sexuality.” Male dancers played monkey soldiers … human soldiers [were] played by women. … Gender [was] indicated solely by costume.”
Dancing Desires, a new publication by the Society of Dance History Scholars is reviewed also in the same Village Voice issue. The book is subtitled Choreographing Sexualities On and Off the Stage, and explores various gay and lesbian issues in the field of dance. The articles in the book appear to go from gossip to esoterica.
The Voice also covers, in “Survival of the Fiercest,” five New York drag queens in the Miss Continental Pageant in Chicago. The article contrasts the images of straight (anachronistic) beauty pageants and the drag contests that make fantasy the main point. Because of cosmetic surgery’s prevalence today, the Continental judges are more interested in talent and presentation. The contestants bemoan the fact that these contests professionality mean that they can no longer work on “drag time” (that is, late) and even their language and use of slang is watched carefully.