Has the Dyke Anti-Defamation League heard of this one from the Chicago Sun-Times (May 1) ? Greek residents of the island of Lesbos have sued to prohibit the use of the word ‘lesbian’ to describe sexual identity. So far, the inhabitants of Crete haven’t complained.
Dolly Parton, even loved by snarky gay celebrity blogger Perez Hilton (Chicago Tribune, May 2), and who has often endeared herself to drag queens with statements akin to ‘You don’t have to change anything!’ got off a zinger at a New York concert (The New York Times, May 3) : When an audience member yelled out that she should run for president, she said, ‘ [D] on’t you think we’ve had enough boobs in the White House?’
Preachers keep popping up with comments that are anti-gay. Re the run for the presidency, Andrew Greeley, in the Chicago Sun-Times (May 7), wonders why the media has skipped fussing at Mr. McCain’s guy, Pastor John Hagee, who ‘ …explains Hurricane Katrina as God’s wrath on gays and lesbians.’ Has anyone asked the Republican candidate if he repudiates this particular statement? As for the Rev. Jeremiah Wright (whom the press insists is Mr. Obama’s guy, although Obama says differently) and his allegation that the U.S. government invented AIDS to off minorities as printed ad nauseum by many papers, has anyone pointed out to Wright that gay men were the first large minority to be stricken by the virus and that gay people are virtually a natural spy network: We’re everywhere—in every type of job, in every type of agency and at every level. If there had been a conspiracy to kill us, we would have known and we would have told. Relax, Barack, you don’t have to disclaim other people’s crazy statements.
From the ‘Who’s-That-Lady?’ file the New York Times (May 4) tells us of Ronaldo Luis Nazario de Lima of the Italian soccer club Milan AC who, when visiting his home country of Brazil, had a little party with three ladies who turned out to be hookers. Then they turned out to be transvestites. Brazil is a very sexually tolerant country but for some reason they are shocked, shocked, shocked by any aspect of sexual otherness, especially attached to sports. Gay soccer players are fired and Ronaldo’s job is on the line. (A personal experience: In Rio a few years ago when at a Brazilian dance academy, three six-foot-tall ladies wanted to take tourist pictures with our group of Chicagoans. We said, ‘OK.’ but those were guys. Our guide went into mouth-frothing, insult-to-the-country denial. But they were still guys.)
R.I.P. Mildred Loving, the pioneer of mixed marriages who was hounded (literally) out of her honeymoon bed by the police in Virginia because she was Black and her husband was white. The New York Times (May 4) says the couple’s fight against their banishment (it’s true, believe it or not) from Virginia led to the Supreme Court decision abolishing laws against mixed marriages. Mrs. Loving’s husband died in a car accident in 1975 and Mrs. Loving withdrew from public life. Last year, however, she ‘ … issued a statement on the 40th anniversary of the announcement of the Supreme Court ruling, urging that gay men and lesbians be allowed to marry.’