Sitcom Nation At a Senate hearing in Washington last September on domestic partnership benefits, a spokesman for the Bush Administration argued against a bill to extend family benefits to GLBT federal civilian employees. This was par for the Bushian course—but deputy director of the Office of Personnel Management Howard Weitzman offered a novel rationale. The problem was not one of moral equivalence or traditional values but instead the possibility of fraud: so what’s to stop any old pair of regular dudes from pretending to be boyfriends just to get the benefits? And then to bolster his case Mr. Weitzman cited the Adam Sandler film I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, in which two firefighters pose as a gay couple in order to secure health benefits. Hilarity ensues when Chuck and Larry have to prove their gay bona fides to the authorities and eventually to everyone they know, which requires that they act out every gay stereotype in the book—always a surefire formula for broad humor (otherwise known as cheap laughs). It must be a sign of the Bush administration’s imminent departure that the best they can do to discredit domestic partnership is to cite a movie whose whole point was the improbability—the absurdity!—of pulling off such a ruse. Their action on this bill is of course a foregone conclusion, but as for offering a cogent explanation for why same-sex couples shouldn’t be recognized as such, they’ve officially given up trying.
About Those Fifty Million Frenchmen Comedian Jerry Lewis, still madcap at age 82, caused a stir in Australia when he insulted his hosts by replying to a question about their fondness for the game of cricket, “Oh, cricket? It’s a fag game,” at which point he mimed an effeminate batter taking a swing. Nor is this the first time that Lewis has uttered the “F” word or tossed out a random homophobic slur; it seems to be a pattern. Jerry Lewis, after all, is part of that generation of straight men that would rather slink into a monastery than be mistaken for queer. But then you look at Lewis’ film career, that zany on-screen persona who screamed gay, gay, gay in the old—and new—sense of the word; the fact that he’s adored by the French (oo la la!); and the matter of his box-office billing in relation to Dean Martin (never on top). Clearly, this is a man who has a lot to compensate for—or maybe he just hates fags because he’s always being mistaken for one.
Tattoo You Understandable outrage erupted when the chaplain to the London Stock Exchange, Rev. Peter Mullen, declared on his blog: “It is time that religious believers began to recommend … discouragements of homosexual practices after the style of warnings on cigarette packets. Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan sodomy can seriously damage your health and their chins with fellatio kills.” Putting aside the medieval absurdity of the reverend’s suggestion, not to mention the matter of his sanity, the proposal seemed oddly illogical even on its own terms. There’s the obvious fact that fellatio is often performed by a woman upon her male sex partner, who might even be her husband, so unless the Reverend is on a war against fellatio itself (which is quite possible), he may want to rethink the whole “fellatio kills” idea. Furthermore, there seems to be a design flaw in the proposed warning labels, both of which appear next to an orifice that could be penetrated by a male phallus whose owner is the supposed target of these messages. As it happens, the “top” in either of these sex acts is almost never the party at risk of infection or other harm; surely he should be the one bearing these dire tattoos next to that occasional disseminator of ills. But if health is the concern, and not just morality, then it hardly makes sense to restrict the tattooing to gay men; nor would the Reverend be the first to suggest that the male generative organ should come with a warning label.
Trickle-Down
Theories A sculpture of the humpbacked flute player Kokopelli was removed from the front of Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum in Blanding, Utah, after complaints from a local group calling itself the “Values Committee.” Despite the fact that the sculpture is quite abstract and minimalist in its presentation of the male form, the townspeople thought they saw an offending appendage, on obscene branch of what amounts to an artistically reorganized tree. One is reminded of a similar incident reported in this column a few years ago, in which the people in a small American city were horrified to discover that the new parking meters on Main Street looked a bit like—yes, I see it now!—erect penises. It may be that Freud has finally trickled down to small-town America, so people are alert to sexual innuendo, whether real or imagined, that would have blown over their heads a generation or two ago. (Then it was possible for New York songwriters to include the line “A hot dog makes her lose control” in The Patty Duke Show theme song, and no one even noticed.) Doubtless the flute player’s phallus was real enough, its prominence exaggerated, if the truth be told—perhaps that was the problem—so off it went to an out-of-the-way location.
Double Reversal A Los Angeles Times sportswriter who changed her gender from male to female has reverted back to his original identity as a man. Mike Penner, who blogged at length on the Times website about his transition to a woman starting in April 2007, continued as a sportswriter at the paper under the byline Christine Daniels. The story of Christine’s return as Mike Penner was widely reported and included upbeat remarks from his editor (“welcome back!”) and from Mike himself about the wonder of L.A.’s teams. But judging by readers’ comments and every blog that covered the story, the question on everyone’s mind was just how far along in the process Christine was when she changed her mind. For all her heartfelt words about correcting nature’s mistake in her original blog, she never actually revealed this detail. The word in the Blogosphere was that she hadn’t “lopped it off,” as one blogger put it; the consensus was that this is one of those times when you really do want to look before you leap.
