Harvey Fierstein has written a piece for the op-ed page of The New York Times (April 13) that ought to be reprinted in every gay rag in the U.S. for vindication and every straight one for explanation. Talking about the Don Imus kerfuffle, he wonders about America’s choice of what is and is not important in public insults to various groups. ‘Hate speak against homosexuals is as commonplace as spam. There are entire channels … that couldn’t fill an hour of programming if required to remove their sexist and homophobic content. Face it: If a Pentagon general, his salary paid with my tax dollars, can label homosexual acts as ‘immoral’ without a call for his dismissal, who are the moral high and mighty kidding?’
Michelle Williams, starring in the Chicago production of The Color Purple, was asked in an interview in TimeOut Chicago (April 12-18) about how the many church groups in the audience were handling the lesbian relationship between two main characters in the play. She said that ‘If that’s what you’re waiting for, you’ll miss the gist’ of the story. Apparently no one’s complained so far.
Right from the ‘Cutting-Edge’ file, The New York Times (April 15) reports that the story of protection from AIDS by circumcision out of Africa doesn’t translate well here stateside. AIDS is basically a heterosexual sex disease there, while here it is a gay-sex or needle-sharing disease. The article says that the operation would not do much good here; in addition, persuading adult males here to have the procedure practically makes them faint dead away. So much for who’s a sissy.
You remember Larry Kramer, the gay activist writer who only antagonized a few people? He says in a letter to The New Yorker (April 16) that in a work-in-progress of his called ‘The American People: A History,’ he’s going to expand on the Jamestown story (previously written about in the magazine). His expansion will consist of insisting that most of the mostly male colony’s sexual couplings were gay and that ‘… services were often conducted to join the partners ‘under God’ and, of equal interest, that they adopted Indian children to raise as their own.’ As a noted philosophy professor once said, ‘Interesting, if true.’ Although Mr. Kramer can point out that Jamestown was named for a very gay king, he may have a whole set of new folks to annoy: the American history establishment.
The New York Times (April 9) writes of ‘The Presidency’s Mormon Moment’ re Mitt Romney’s try for the presidency. The article touches on one problematic aspect of the whole thing: Mormons are not monotheists (and, hence, not Christians—which may tick off Christian fundies). However, the item doesn’t touch on another: Romney’s flip-flop on gay rights, which is probably because the Mormon church is absolutely, institutionally homophobic.