From the ‘High-or-Low-Culcha?’ file The NY Times (5/17) reports on a fadlet, Lit Lite, which invites performers to pick out passages from their favorite bad books. Drag queens seem to be a big favorite. Flotilla De Barge read from Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Sweetie read from Sarah, a novel of a 12-year-old transvestite truck stop hooker.
Media fallout from the scientific study re sniffing testosterone and the differences in gay & straight men: the Chicago Sun Times (5/15)—’Finding biological underpinnings to homosexuality only underscores what we already know to be true: that gays have always been among us, a dynamic and significant part of culture and always will be, and that extending them their due rights as citizens in no way undercuts the lives of anybody else.’ From The NY Times (5/17) on the same topic ‘Just as puzzling [as this sniff test] is the existence of homophobia. Why didn’t evolution shape straight men to react to their gay fellows by thinking: ‘Great! More women for me!”?
Neil Steinberg, columnist in the Sun Times (5/6), debunks screwy statistics re gay people: one of Steinberg’s readers sent this to him—’According to the CDC the average life span of active homos M/F is 43/46.’ The most common cause of death, the reader goes on, is death from sexual practices for men and murder by mate for woman. Steinberg asked CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics and found it does not track deaths by sexual orientation. These ‘statistics’ were basically invented by a disgraced ‘scientist’ and fanatic Paul Cameron and then repeated by ‘moral scold’ William ‘the gambler’ Bennett in 1997. Steinberg mentions that it’s true that intolerant people roast in hell and he saw pix of them in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
OK, all you red-state Florida fundies, you have a new problem. Cheek-by-jowl to Orlando’s Disney theme park, the ne plus ultra of family values, an all-new Magic Kingdom has grown up. The Parliament House complex of bars, hotels, et al., is 100% gay. A big time-share resort, the Gardens, gay-friendly in the extreme, is being added and even closer to Disney is another gay destination, the Freedom Resort & Spa. Orlando, by the way, has the oldest gay community center in Florida. Gay Days, a series of parties, events and performances, is held throughout the city in the first week of June. Christian activists don’t, ahem, like this much. The NY Times (5/13) reports Orlando and other cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia and San Diego are working to attract gay tourists. Maybe Katherine Harris could check out a drag show or two in Orlando and& really learn how to put on make-up.