How about starting the New Year with a few short and sweet gay items from all over: Soccer star/model David Beckham says, ‘I’m very honored to have the tag of gay icon,’ but adds if any of it’s because of how he dresses, better thank Spice Girl wife Victoria because she picks his outfits (Chicago Sun-Times,Dec. 20) ; though Mormons don’t like gay folk at all, the Mormon Mecca, Salt Lake City, has a Mormon minority because they all moved to the ‘burbs, whereupon it has become rated one of the 51 ‘fabulous’ places to be gay in America (The Economist, Dec. 22- Jan. 4) ; one of the pics pulled from a Russian art show in Paris because Mr. Putin was displeased was ‘Era of Mercy,’ which shows two (cute) Russian policemen kissing in a birch forest (The New York Times, Dec. 1); the gay populations of Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa have increased enormously, not because gay people fled to the hills but because they are ‘coming out’ where they once hid (The New York Times, Dec. 27) ; every single Democratic presidential candidate supports either civil unions for gay people or marriage, (Republican Ron Paul says leave it to the states but the rest of that snarling conservative pack is anti-gay) (Chicago Tribune, Dec. 14)
Two views of gay Muslims: The New York Times (Dec. 18) has an article on gays in Iraq. There was a tentative quiet acceptance of a hesitant gay sub-culture in Baghdad before the Americans came. Now, with the rise of conservative religious extremism and American distaste for gays, things are much more difficult: Many gays now live in constantly changing safe houses and most want to leave the country. Things are different in Berlin, which has a large Muslim population. The New York Times (Jan. 1) reports that gay Muslims from Turkey and the Middle East are filling their own gay discos where, ironically, they often dance traditional male-only circle dances. Even there though they are aware that their families would actually, not figuratively, kill them if they found they were gay.
Here’s some High Culcha for the New Year: ‘The Noel Coward Collection’ has just been released as a DVD. Thirty-one hours of some of the wittiest plays, shows and reviews in the English language by the gay playwright who did camp with brains. Recently published and reviewed in The New York Times Book Review (Dec. 23), Henry James: The Mature Master by Sheldon M. Novick entered the debate over James’ sex life—not was he gay or not, but rather did he have sex at all or not. The author comes down on the side of sex and rather a lot of it, all romantic and virtually all of it with good-looking young young men. Quite a change from James’ previous rep as an ‘effete, fussy figure; homosexual, if at all, only in spirit, and most likely celibate.’ Happy New Year!