From the ‘Longtime-Companion’ file, The New York Times (June 15) reviews ‘Chris & Don: A Love Story.’ The documentary movie is the story of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy’s 35-year relationship. (Yes, you do know who they are, sort of. Isherwood wrote ‘I Am a Camera,’ which was made into Cabaret, and Isherwood based the bisexual lover of Sally Bowles, played by Liza Minnelli, on himself.) Bachardy was the much younger lover (over 30 years Isherwood’s junior) who Isherwood sent to art school ‘… where he flourished.’ Some of the insights in the movie involve the way the two handled the much younger man’s outside sexual relationships (Think cartoons—I’m not kidding) and Christopher’s insistence as his ‘… acute political consciousness’ grew to make ‘… the treatment of the homosexual a test by which every political party and government must be judged.’
From the ‘Back-to-Back’ file, The New Republic (June 11) has articles, pro and con, on the gay-marriage issue in California. It should be added that the con argument was only over the fact that the pro-gay stance came through the courts and not the legislature. All the bases got covered and the biggest discussion point (nearly unsaid) was that, in a very few years, the issue will be moot, since younger voters are more and more in favor of gay marriage.
In a related topic from the ‘Those-Wicked-Fairies-No-I-Won’t-Marry-Harry-and-Larry’ file, The New York Times (June 13) reports a number of conservative county clerks in California will get around the issuing of marriage licenses to gay people after June 16 by not performing any marriages—gay, straight or other. One clerk at least expects to be sued. It could be opined that impeachment or firing for dereliction of duty would be more ‘suit’-able.
Still on the topic of gay unions, The New York Times’ (June 10) science section—from the file ‘Once-Again-Gays-Ride-to-the-Rescue-of-Straights’—spotlights social scientists studying healthy marriages who looked in an odd place and got some queer insights. They saw that ‘gay and lesbian couples had about the same rate of conflict as the heterosexual ones’ but they had more satifactory relationships in general—inequality of opposite-sex relationships can mess things up. Gay and lesbian couples, for instance, often used humor to step back from serious negativity. The biggest thing learned by the scientists is that lesbian and gay unions use the same arguments and solutions as straight couples, which indicates the various fight tactics and makeup answers are not sex-linked but are general human attributes.
From the ‘What-Goes-Around’ file, The Chicago Tribune (June 9) says some conservative congregations are beginning to at least talk to gay Christians. Jay Bakker, of the many tattoos and the son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, has led some of his gay congregants to, among others, an evangelical megachurch in South Barrington for talks and worship services. (Also, see the June 11 issue of Windy City Times.) It might be postulated that the younger Bakker, who is not gay, perhaps owes his extremely pro-gay (he’s for gay marriage) stance to his deceased mother, who publicly thanked gay people for being kind to her when she was in distress over her husband’s scandal.