From the ‘Oy-Vey-They’re-Gay’ file, WBBM radio news reported (11/21) that the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that foreign same-sex marriages must be honored in Israel. Complicating the situation is that even straight folks have trouble hitchin’ up there, as all marriage rules are controlled by an ultra-orthodox Jewish group that apparently doesn’t like anyone who is not them to get married.
Speaking of religion, Elton John certainly did. The Chicago Tribune (11/13) quotes him as saying, ‘Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays.’ He goes on to say that ‘ [f] rom my point of view, I would ban religion completely. Organized religion doesn’t seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it’s not really compassionate.’ I’ll bet Sir Elton’s lunch dates with the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury are gone with the wind.
The New York Times (11/21) reviews the film adaptation of Alan Bennett’s play The History Boys. Set in an English boys’ school, both male leads play gay teachers, the playwright (who did the screenplay) is gay and some of the student characters are gay. One would not be stretching things to call this a gay movie in which ‘the acting is wonderful,’ which has a ‘quicksilver pace’ and where the actors ‘… make a seamless ensemble.’
A new play, Paul Rudnick’s Regrets Only, is reviewed by The New York Times (11/16) as a ‘light comedy of drawing-room manners that asks, simply, ‘what if?” It seems to have grabbed part of its plot from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, of all things: The story line has ‘… every hairdresser, florist, dressmaker, party planner’ in New York City going on strike to foil the marriage of an anti-gay marriage proponent. The critics are mainly circling ’round the main character, based loosely on deceased fashion designer Bill Blass, who was indeed gay but more conservative on gay issues than any Family Values pooh-bah. Too much a jump for the fussers’ imaginations, I guess.
The recent legalization of gay marriage in South Africa (Chicago Tribune, 11/15) is in the spirit of that country’s post-apartheid constitution, which is ‘… determined to make discrimination a thing of the past.’ It may, however, make things difficult for that country’s famously liberal Anglican archbisop, Desmond Tutu. Africa’s other Anglican leaders are among the most fervently anti-gay personages in the world. These African leaders are in the midst of trying to force a schism (split) in the American Episcopal Church precisely on gay issues; they’re anti-gay marriage and anti-gay clergy.