While The NY Times (9/28) reports that voters in 10 of 11 states which are voting on whether gay marriage should be banned will vote to outlaw it (Oregon is the exception), gay folks high and low are working against the ban: lesbians, in an article in the Chicago Tribune (9/29), are commenting on it humorously. The lesbian standup comedy troupe, Hysterical Women, and comedians Celeste Pechous, Vickie Shaw, and Jessica Halem are using ‘Comedy [to bring gay and lesbian]… issues back to the forefront in a non-threatening way.’
The NY Times Book Review (9/26) looks at two gay authored books on the issue of gay marriage: Evan Wolfson’s Why Marriage Matters and George Chauncey’s Why Marriage? Both authors show the conservative charge that the rules of traditional marriage are written in stone is fictitious. Marriage has always evolved and continues to do so—think of inter-racial marriage laws, capital punishment for adultery, and the varied number of spouses allowed. Says the reviewer: ‘We can absorb gay marriage into our society not because it’s gay but because it’s marriage.’
Nicholas Kristof on the Op-Ed page of The NY Times (9/29) shows how disliked and abused women are in parts of the world, for example Ms. Mukhtaran Bibi of Pakistan. See if you can follow her story: Her brother was sexually abused by a male member of another family who covered up his crime by accusing the brother of having an affair with a high-ranking woman. A village council decided the appropriate punishment for the brother was to have his sister, Ms. Mukhtaran, gang-raped. So she was. Fortunately she was able to salvage enough esteem not to commit suicide and she now runs a school.
A drag version of an 18th century comedy opera whose main character is basically a frog lady? Platee by Jean-Phillippe Rameau, a 1745 romp through a swamp, not only has an amphibian-like marsh nymph played by a man, says The NY Times (9/30), but the Mark Morris Dance Group gets to portray a cross-dressing lesbian, and a ‘rough-trade gay man in a leather jacket and leather jockstrap’ (as a satyr). Costumes are by Isaac Mizrahi and everyone looks good, even Diva Platee and her Lizard-in-Waiting.