Nicholas Kristof, a regular contributor to the Op-Ed page of The NY Times (10-25), has a column, entitled ‘Gay At Birth?’ which goes into the increasing evidence that gayness has a major genetic component. His conclusion? ‘What’s abnormal is anti-homosexual bias.’ If homosexuality has a biological basis, he goes on, how can we ban gay marriage and service of gay people in the armed forces?
Speaking of the armed forces, the Chicago Tribune (10-23) says a group of gay veterans are pushing for a national memorial of their own. Led by Henry Thomas, a former high-ranking official in the Reagan administration, the group wants a corner of the Congressional Cemetery to be such a memorial. Leonard Matlovich, the first soldier to take the U.S. Military to court over its anti-gay stance, is buried there. His headstone is inscribed ‘When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.’ Thomas, who has prostate cancer, says, ‘Gays have always served in the military and carried their share of the load. We just want that to be acknowledged.’
A letter reacting to Andrew Sullivan’s lament about being Catholic and, as a result of gayness, not welcome in that church, puts it on the bottom line in The NY Times (10-26): ‘What church leaders do not yet understand is that for every gay or lesbian Catholic they drive away, dozens of their parents, family member and friends are apt to follow.’
The Chicago Sun-Times (10-20) tells of the somewhat tentative gay film festival in India, that country’s first. Having gay relations can get you 10 years to life in prison there. The press announced the festival, but was banned from taking pictures, since organizers said audience members were ‘in various stages of coming out.’ Among the films were Manjaben, Truck Driver about a woman cross-dresser, and a documentary about two 60ish men who are gay between the lines of a heterosexual lifestyle.
The NY Times (10-27) shows the similar timidity in the U.S. 20 years ago in the new Broadway musical, The Boy From OZ starring Hugh Jackman as Peter Allen, the hyper-gay but closeted Australian entertainer. (To the young folks out there: He was married to Liza Minnelli, as if that would hide gayness!)
The NY Times (10/4) highlights Irshad Manji, a Canadian muslim and a lesbian. Manji, an intellectual TV journalist, has written a new book The Trouble with Islam. She calls for an Islamic reformation for what she says are institutional problems of that religion vis-a-vis women, slavery, Jews, and authoritarianism. She has received death threats. Mohamed Elmasry the president of the Canadian Islamic Congress says ‘she calls herself a good Muslim even though she is a lesbian and feminist. She will have a shadow over her interpretation.’—————————————-