Dan Savage, the gay author and sex-advice columnist, in an op-ed piece in The New York Times (July 30), argues that the Washington State and New York State Supreme Court decisions against same-sex marriage don’t much hurt the growing movement for such marriages. In Savage’s words, the courts held that ‘ [b] asically, [they] found that marriage is like a box of Trix: It’s for kids.’ Further (as Savage and his partner have an adopted child): ‘Both courts have found that my son’s parents have no right to marry, but what of my son’s right to have married parents?’ Savage believes that if this argument involving reproduction is the best the opponents of same-sex marriage can come up with, then, ‘… our side must be winning.’
The same day the Times covered a group of gay activists who themselves are against gay marriage. Bill Dobbs (gay civil-rights leader), Jim Eigo (editor of sex magazines Playguy and Inches) and Sarah Schulman (lesbian playwright) are all suspicious of draining resources from AIDS research and other gay causes, even (in Schulman’s words) returning to the Eisenhower values of the 1950s. Even most of these activists are in favor of legal rights for ‘… other nontraditional relationships, like unmarried couples of all kinds.’
A story in the Chicago Sun-Times (July 18) on the new lesbian Batwoman that deconstructs, in minute detail, the hints that Kate Kane is a dyke (since the writers never actually state it) says this about the whole Batman series (criticized since 1954 over whether the dynamic duo was gay): ‘Batman’s ‘beard’ has come out as a lesbian. Can a rainbow flag sticker on the bumper of the Batmobile be far behind?’ The article has an interesting sidebar chronicling gay comic heroes, villains and a few other (closeted?) cases: North Star; Pied Piper; Obsidian; Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus (lesbian only in the original Japanese manga); John Constantine; Jimmy Olson (El Supremo Gabinete?); and Hawk and Dove. The final word on Batman and Robin: ‘… if the pair existed in the real world, we’d have no qualms about calling child protective services.’
The Chicago Tribune (July 28) profiled gay bar Nutbush City Limits, which has been in Forest Park for 30 years. One patron refers to the place, formerly a speakeasy, as ‘Cheers for queers.’ Still geographically isolated, the popular bar confounds several ideas, such as the thought that such bars need to be surrounded by a large lesbian and gay clientele, and that such a bar cannot be a family place that indeed it has become for its customers.