BTW
This article is only a portion of the full article. If you are already a premium subscriber please login. If you are not a premium subscriber, please subscribe for access to all of our content.

Bitter Leavings As the Bush administration was slouching toward the exit door, they were given one last chance to make good on that ancient promise of “compassionate conservatism”—a nonbinding human rights resolution in the United Nations that every other Western country supported. The declaration called for the decriminalization of homosexuality in countries that still had such laws, and especially for the cessation of harsh punishment for consensual same-sex behavior. Among the 66 countries signing the resolution last December were all 27 members of the European Union, most of Latin America, Australia, Japan, and many other Asian countries. In rejecting the resolution, the U.S. joined the Vatican, the entire Islamic Conference, and many of the more unsavory dictatorships of Africa and Asia. As limited in scope as the resolution was—basically an end to state-sanctioned violence against gay people—the Bush administration’s failure to support it speaks volumes about their regard for basic human rights and their unwillingness, even when bidding farewell to a demoralized nation, to cross the religious Right and make the smallest gesture toward compassion.

Military Brass The U.S. Military Academy recently announced its nominees for the 2nd Annual Cadet Choice Award, which honors the movie character that best exemplifies West Point leadership. The selections are made by a vote of the 4,400 Corps of Cadets, and this year’s nominees are: Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight; Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg in Valkyrie; Dr. Henry Walton in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; John Hancock in Hancock; Harvey Milk in Milk; and James Bond in Quantum of Solace. Wait, back up—did they say Harvey Milk? There’s something happening here when a flamboyant gay man from 70’s San Francisco is nominated by the U.S. Military Academy to exemplify its creed of “Duty, Honor, Country.” Winners of the award receive the coveted “Tarbucket,” which is a tall, ornate, black-and-gold parade hat with a feather plume. No, that is not why Harvey Milk was nominated!

A Little Schadenfreude There’s probably no connection, but just a month after the Radio Hall of Fame inducted the notoriously homophobic James Dobson as an honoree, the Hall of Fame’s parent company, the Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC), experienced a financial meltdown and had to put its new, half-finished headquarters on the auction block. Dobson’s nomination had been met with bitter disappointment and lively demonstrations outside the MBC building in Chicago, but the Museum, headed by Bruce DuMont, decided to forge ahead with the induction. Weeks later—and who knows? maybe there is a connection between the two events—DuMont announced that construction had stopped on his $22 million boondoggle. The MBC has been without a home since 2003 and appears destined to remain that way for the foreseeable future. There’s even a tie-in with another recent Chicago story: it seems the beleaguered governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, had promised a grant of $6 million to the MBC but later reneged due to the recession, leaving the Radio Hall of Fame quite literally out in the cold, recent inductees and all.

British Men Are from Venus New figures released in the UK show that after three years with civil unions, which give same-sex couples equivalent status with straight ones, some 60,000 Britons have entered into such a union—and 75 percent of them are male couples. What’s curious is that in the U.S., a very different pattern has emerged in states where civil unions are allowed. Take Vermont, the first state to offer same-sex civil unions, where about two-thirds of the couples signing up have been women. No explanation seems ready at hand. An article in The Economist proposed that perhaps Britain has more gay men than lesbians, but it scarcely seems plausible that such a vast demographic difference would exist between the two countries. Clearly, some cultural effect is at work here—perhaps a different attitude toward the institution of marriage itself. What’s interesting is that the U.S. pattern is often held up as evidence that “women are from Venus” and instinctively pair-bonding, while men are naturally promiscuous and reluctant to settle down. Either the theory is wrong or British women are from Mars.

Traditional Sidewalk Values Soon after the passage of Proposition 8 in California, The Daily Princetonian announced: “Campaign to Remove Freshmen from Sidewalks in Second Successful Week.” The tongue-in-cheek article reported on a plan to ban freshmen from using campus sidewalks by defining a sidewalk as “a pathway for sophomores, juniors, seniors, graduate students, faculty, staff, and other members of the university community.” This would “preserve traditional sidewalk values,” according to supporters, who deny that they’re “froshophobic” but maintain that freshmen “degrade the sacred institution of sidewalks, and jeopardize the validity of the upperclassmen’s own perambulation.” Citing California’s Prop 8 as a clear precedent for a majority to eliminate a minority group’s civil rights, supporters of “Princeton Prop 8” have demonstrated on campus and collected some 500 signatures.