GAYS: GET IT STRAIGHT!

The other night I got so horny that I posted an ad on Craig's List and arranged to hook up with several gentleman callers. Right before I started painting my mug, I remembered that I was low on condoms and popped out to the drug store to pick some up. Once there, I realized that I'd better get both regular sized and extra large, since you never know how accurate those "AOL inches" in personal ads are gonna be. Then I thought, it's a recession, so why not be thrifty and buy the 32-count boxes of each size since you always save buying in bulk!

I could see the puzzled look in the cashier's eyes as I plopped down 3 jumbo boxes of different sized Trojans. I'm sure she was thinking "Does your dick change sizes?" and I was all ready with my comeback--"No, but my asshole sure can!"

So let me introduce myself to you as a slut, who prefers multiple sex partners a day than any zany thoughts of holy matrimony which might impede my activity--or rather in my case, passivity. A year ago, Bette Midler came under fire from gay groups for suggesting on Larry King that gay marriage shouldn't be such a big deal since most of the gays she knew were promiscuous. The truth hurts. Anyhoo, let me also introduce myself as an atheist who values a gay wedding ceremony as much as I do a gay baptism with cosmo's or a gay communion with low carb wafers.



This gives me a different prospective on gay marriage than most. Due to shame, other depraved card-carrying nympho's may not be quite as vocal about how laughable gay marriage is for them, so I felt that a certain voice missing from the homo outrage over this Rick Warren gig at the inauguration. I understand that if your goal is to settle down with your lifetime mate, especially if you live in California where you were just yanked away from your newly-wed when Prop 8 won, you could be quite unhinged right about now. But aside from the differences in our personal outlooks, in my view, the protests against Rick Warren's appearance has been blown waaaaaaaay out of proportion. One problem is that the media always needs a new headline, important or not. This Rick Warren thing kept an Obama's mistake in the headlines for a good week. Now that they've gays have had their sissy hissy fit, the fickle press has moved on to attempt to smear Obama by tying him to Illinois governor Blagojevich's corruption.

But Obama's only allotted the controversial pastor a two and a half minute speech--not a 4-year cabinet appointment. And the crafty president-elect is balancing out the Warren factor by ending the inauguration with a legendary black civil rights activist who is FOR gay marriage. Try finding another one of those in the mainstream black church. (I'll wait.) Obama himself doesn't even support homo nuptials yet he's giving a contrasting a voice to Rick's. And of course everyone knows you save the best for last!

Of course, there are sizable benefits in using Rick for the invocation. Perhaps the whole country will be tuning in to see it's first mixed race president anyway, but those viewers who identify with Rick--ie the extremely backward anti-science bunch-- just might soften up towards Obama and ease our nation's desperately needed return to a more progressive path after 8 dark years of Bush. After the queer backlash, Rick even softened his stance up a little by removing language from his website which banned "unrepentant" gays from his church. Child, don't you know how I wish I lived in California so that I could grab a boisterous gaggle of drag queens and bare-ass chap-wearing to attend that service, now that we're allowed in, and turn his Saddleback Church into the Brokeback Church! Can you just imagine how flawlessly we'd speak in tongues after a snort of poppers and a bump of Special K?

Look, Obama is just throwing the evangelicals a bone. So let's not have the gay community snarling at the man over it--he's the best hope we have. In defense of Warren's selection, Obama even declared himself a "fierce" advocate of gay rights--girls, he's even using queeny Project Runway lingo. That's a sign of great promise! Do we want to weaken him by forcing him to renege (no racial slur intended) on Rick's invitation before he's even inaugurated? Honey, a mixed race man named Hussein has made it into the White House using a brilliant, groundbreaking campaign strategy--shouldn't we let him at least get into office and start squawking if he tries to throw us under the bus then? Rick's brief address just doesn't strike me as a big deal.



Rick's really made a fool of himself--offering as proof of his gay-friendly attitude that he offered Prop 8 protestors water and doughnuts? Darlin', I like to eat just as much as the portly pastor, and that pig knows as well as this one that doughnuts are served with coffee or milk--NEVER with water. What an insult! Stop the press! Call the HRC! Doughnuts and water?!? And Rick's support of Prop 8 was based on a ludicrous notion that if it lost, Prop 8 supporters could become victims of hate speech. How completely absurd! But it worked with his large, ignorant congregation.

But even outside of his congregation, how many religions accept us? Despite all of the complexes my dad gave me, I'm glad he also instilled in me the need to question absolutely everything and the strength to stand up to anyone I disagreed with--even a church which thought I was less than because of the sexual orientation I was born with. I wish more gay people would simply abandon a church which looks down on them--and I'm constantly amazed at muslims homosexuals who try to reconcile themselves with a faith which would stone them to death. Get a grip, gays! Almost all religions denounce us as amoral--so why not take away their power and ignore them as the ancient, contradictory fairy tales they are? And thereby devalue religious institutions like marriage? If civil unions offer the same legal rights, I say TAKE 'EM!

The photo below strikes me as a particularly crazy argument--GOD LOVES GAY MARRIAGE? That's throwing the ball right back into the evangelicals' court. Do you think that they'll ever agree with what a sinner like you thinks God wants?



And if we believe so strongly in separation of church and state, why is a representative of any faith invited to speak at a political function? I'd just as soon hear the mumbo jumbo of one of Obama's Kenyan witch doctor relatives babbling over a caldron than I would any other Christian holy man. At least it would be more entertaining and could feature well-hung African men bouncing around in skimpy clothing. And I stll have half a box of extra large condoms left--I'm just sayin'!



Before you dismiss the Kenyan idea as far-fetched, let's not forget how prominent a part Kenyan witch doctors' have already played in this election. One predicted Obama's win. And Sarah Palin's former church was led by a Pastor Muthee, who she thanked for chanting her into the governor of Alaska's office. Muthee somehow wound his way to Alaska from Africa (?!?!) after the tales of his prowess included chasing a "witch" from Kiambu, Kenya after several car wrecks occured near her house. Maybe Obama can retain Muthee's services to drive out a D.C. area witch--does Ann Coulter live in Washington?

KENYAN WITCH DOCTOR/PASTOR THOMAS MUTHEE PRAYS OVER SARAH PALIN



Of course, homo's aren't the only target of fundamentalists. The morons challenge science! They're also vehemently anti-abortion and Rick Warren's particular church does not view spousal abuse as grounds for divorce. So why aren't women's groups up in arms over Warren's pick? Because they weren't just slapped in the face with a stinging defeat like Prop 8? Or because Rick's speech isn't a big deal? Hell, I love to see the gay community angrily making demands. The gay movement often seems finished now that we have gay-themed TV shows on prime time and a perceived cure for AIDS. But choose your battles, people! On the same day that the Human Rights Commission issued a statement condemning Obama's choice of invocation-giver, George Bush pushed through one of his midnight regulations which allows pharmacy employees to refuse to fill prescriptions which they consider contrary to their religious beliefs. I clocked this madness on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC broadcast and when Rachel asked Rep. Diana Degette what could be done about the situation, her guest said phone the White House today. Drats! I caught the 11:00 PM broadcast of The Rachel Maddow Show and I don't think the president's phone lines were open at that hour. Did the HRC issue a statement about this?

Do you recognize the scope of this new regluation? Some cuckoo Pentecostal cashier could refuse to dispense antibiotics for a child. A woman could be refused the morning after pill and end up forced to have an abortion! A gay man with AIDS could try to refill his life-or-death protease inhibitors only to be told that the born-again pharmacist on duty didn't approve of his lifestyle! Especially problematic would be rural drug stores where a possibly wheelchair-bound AIDS victim didn't have the strength or means to hunt down a kinder, if further away pharmacy. Or I can imagine a spaced-out Scientologist denying me my anti-depressants--and if you think I'm bitter now...

So Bush has just enacted a law which could give religious nuts (who also have a problem with science) the right to conceivably kill gay people! Where's our outcry on that one? I'm sorry, but life or death issues tend to trump matrimonial ones in my book.

I'm filled with joy when gays have the gumption to take to the streets and insist on their rights. It's just that I'm saddened when we only take to the streets to only demand rights which pertain to us. You want people to care about your right to marry? Then you've got to care about issues outside of your own community. We're in a war which a vast majority of citizens no longer support. Our tax dollars are being spent to kill innocent Iraqis at this very moment. A chunk of ice the size of a large city broke off of the North Pole this year. And you're whining because you're afraid that you might not inherit your lover's silverware because of your inability to marry? (I know that there are dreadful situations where dying lovers are not allowed to have their lovers visit them if the patient's family disapproves. Just making a point.) I'll never have children, but I don't want to see other people's children dying courtesy of my tax dollars. Or their grandchildren unable to draw a breath due to man-made climate change. I suppose there are gays who also protest the illegal war in Iraq and global warming in addition to Prop 8, but for most of us to only pop out with a sign when it concerns same-sex marriage strikes me as selfish. If you expect straights to care about your rights, then you need to be a caring person about the issues which affect us all. It's not just because of my promiscuous nature that gay marriage is way down on the priority list when both people and our planet are dying by our own hands.

Michelle Obama stated during the primaries that "our souls are broken." I don't know exactly how one's soul is legislated back to health, but her words struck a chord with me. A dissonant, disturbing chord. We are a nation which casts more votes for American Idol than for our own president. We're a nation who doesn't have a clue what the writ of habeus corpus means, much less that Bush has ripped it away from us, so that we no longer have the right to ask "Why have you put in me in jail?" For years, straights, gays and everything in between have sat back and done little except watch the nightmares of the Bush administration in between updates on Britney's breakdown and Paris Hilton's jail sentences. The whole executive and legislative branch can grind to a halt over a travesty like the debacle of vegetable Terry Schiavo, but we don't have a clue what's really going on until it's often too late, like with Bush's frightful new midnight pharmacy regulations. And how can a democracy, the system we're supposedly fighting to install in Iraq, function if it's voters are largely clueless?

Obama won because the country felt like he was the only candidate equipped to deal with the economic crisis after McCain had declared the economy "fundamentally strong". Neither candidate dwelled on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last few weeks of the campaign. How tragic! For a "Christian" nation? We don't mind ignoring that pesky THOU SHALT NOT KILL commandment while paying to kill foreigners as long as we sense that this new president can remedy the economy. That way, we can continue to inexpensively drive next door to our neighbor's house because our car has our cigarettes and cup-holder in it. And don't you recall something in the Bible about the love of money being sinful? Yet we heed economic issues and ignore the murders of innocents in our names? That's broken souls for you. With some awfully misguided priorities.

I recently received on email petition asking me to urge Defense Secretary Robert Gates to repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and allow gays and lesbians to serve in the military. I wrote back that given the current abomination that is the Iraq war and rumblings that our fight in Afghanistan lacks a clear strategy, why on earth would anyone, gay or straight, want to give their life to such ill-conceived fiascos? I remember the last time "Don't Ask Don't Tell" dominated the gay movement over a decade ago. And while I wholeheartedly agree that homo's deserve every right that hetero's have, why would we want the right to kill? The year that this issue was raging, NYC chose as it's grand marshall a lesbian whose only distinction was that she was kicked out of the military when her sexual orientation became known. In her scary publicity photo, she'd posed in fatigues and sunglasses and was holding a rifle. Well, isn't that festive for a parade? The same year, Los Angeles chose Carol Channing as their grand marshall. I was so jealous--LA's choice seemed more fitting than a gun-toting ex-military mama and Carol's a born-again who's not even gay! Thankfully, our calls for gays in the military died down since we've been in an actual war.



But if we gays are now going to make holy matrimony our predominant issue, why did we all seem to miss presidential candidate Denis Kucinich's interview on LOGO, our most-watched all-gay channel? I saw it and burst into tears at this man's sincerity and desire to take our side with conviction on this polarizing hot button issue. Although it seems unlikely that a man with features as elfin as his will ever be elected--especially during wartime--Dennis was the only Democratic candidate to fully support gay marriage. So if gays are so dedicated to same sex marriage, why didn't he become a cause celebre in the our community--he who solely had the nerve to stand up for our right to wed? Why was there no statement from the HRC when Dennis was denied access to a later debate?

Many gays favored Hillary, for no discernible reason. After Obama nabbed the nomination, I chatted with an employee from a gay rights organization here in New York and asked if he was pleased. He was not. When I asked him why, he told me that he was a Hillary supporter. I prodded him for more info and the only thing he could come up with was "Hillary's my girl." Why? A fuzzy feeling she gave them when she walked in the gay pride parade because she wanted your vote? Many gay men are so shallow that I can actually imagine them supporting Senator Clinton because they fancy the notion of a Project Runway challenge in which Hill's inaugural dress is designed. Who knows? But you can't vote on a feeling. You must get to know the issues, particularly if the right to marry is the centerpiece of your movement and you're voting for a candidate who doesn't support it and never has.

HOW DID HILLARY MANAGE TO ESCAPE THIS DEADLY SCENE INN BOSNIA ALIVE?



"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

--Hillary Clinton, speech at George Washington University, March 17, 2008.

As I mentioned, Rick Warren has been given a two and a half minute speech at the inauguration, not a cabinet position. But Hillary did receive a cabinet position, and one which she's unsuited for. Don't you remember that she tried to trump Obama's foreign policy experience with her own--and her example of foreign expertise was dodging bullets at an airport in Bosnia? Meanwhile, there's video on every news channel of Hillary deplaning on a sunny day as local children practically skipped up to her on the tarmac. Not only was this a bold-faced lie which made her a national laughing stock, if she needs to conjure this easily disproved fib as evidence of her vast foreign policy experience, then the sleazy snake has zero foreign policy experience. Even if she'd been telling the truth and had sought cover from sniper fire, then plenty of gang members and other criminals would be equally qualified to represent out nation abroad. I don't think the fact that Senator Clinton voted to invade Iraq will endear her to the Middle Eastern nations we need to make amends with most, and India's strong ties with the Clintons via donations to her husband's foundation will make the India/Pakistan situation even stickier, as the two neighbors seem to be gearing up for battle as I type this. And we've got a brand new partisan Secretary of State to handle the situation!

After Bush's reign of error, we're hated worldwide. And maybe a planes didn't crash into buildings in your city, but they did in mine and I don't want Hillary, who took the wrong side on the war issue, trying to clean up a deeply-rooted international mess which she helped to create. And if the mess isn't cleaned up yesterday, we're going to have new generations of terrorists which we've created dropping by to introduce themselves to us. Possibly even before rising oceans erode Manhattan, Los Angeles and Miami Beach and New Orleans. And who can afford to move in this distressed economy? If we can move, and manage to make it through our failing infrastructure to dry ground, we won't be able to find any work. 40 million US citizens can't afford to pay their utility bills this month. In the winter. And the Minnesota Senate race rages on, a month after the votes were cast. Of course, after the last two presidential elections were stolen, we're used to it. We're becoming a banana republic without the fucking bananas. And you've got time to worry about a two and a half minute speech?