Month: December 2004

I’ve been hearing conservative pundits and reading conservative writers taking aim at Hollywood more and more lately, and their efforts strike me as so disingenuous and transparent, I believe it’s time to shed some serious light on them. This is the first in a series of posts devoted to exploring the methods and goals behind these efforts. To get it started, I’ll jump right into the film that symbolizes better than any other the "passion" of this campaign.

On Tacitus, there’s a blog-ad that illustrates the tone and temperment, not to mention the lack of rationality, behind some of these efforts. With a picture of Michael Moore flashing a "peace sign" it reads:

This Man Wants Another Oscar

But you can help us stop him.

Impose your values on Hollywood.

Visit Passion for Fairness today and support Mel Gibson and The Passion of The Christ.

That’s right. There’s an entire blog, with a petition you can sign, devoted to lobbying the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences into nominating Gibson’s film for Oscars in several categories. The petition begins:

To the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences:

It has come to my attention that you and your Board of Governors are considering ignoring the important film The Passion of The Christ, its director and its actors when you hand out nominations on January 25th. This would be an unspeakable insult to the millions of us mainstream Americans who believe this is the most important film in years, decades even.

I urge you to give fair consideration to the film and its principals when you determine and announce the nominees for this year’s Oscars.

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I intend (someday) to do a detailed critique of the current fight over Social Security.  As many of you may suspect, I’m not aligned with the Drummian* "Three Little Birds" view (for those who don’t know their Marley, that’s the song with the refrain "don’t worry about a thing / ’cause every little thing gonna be all right!"), for my deep-seated suspicion of the government’s ability to adapt, revise, and actually pay for itself is too great for such lightheartedness.  Moreover, as Sebastian has pointed out in these pages, Drum’s numbers are a little goofy.  This does not mean, however, that I’m much the fan of George Bush’s approach, which seems loosely based upon Pink Floyd’s "Wish You Were Here."    

But all that’s for another day.  Today, I’ve just got an anecdote.  I received a letter from the government the other day,** which stated that my Social Security benefits had vested and put a pretty surprising number on the monthly payment that I can expect to receive during my golden years.  The amount wasn’t as sneeze-worthy as I had expected.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m still in favor of some form of privitization.  But I admit to feeling a little, well, good about having that benefit guaranteed.  A little, secure, you know?

And then I had the offending bit of humanity removed and replaced with version 2.1 of MicroSoft’s(r) Windows Human Replicator, Center-Right. 

von

*It’s to Drum’s great credit, incidentally, that he’s been writing about this subject for quite some time with such urgency and clarity — establishing the meme, as they say.  Y’all know that he’s one of the smartest liberal voices out there, doncha?

**Keeping to the musical theme, I admit recalling the opening lines — though, clearly, not the intent — of Public Enemy’s "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" as I wrote this passage. 

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If you missed it earlier, be sure and see von’s defense of Lincoln over at vox popli.

Today, however, another debate over the 16th President is brewing.

A while ago I attended a seminar where four giants of the contemporary theater were discussing their craft and how it relates to social issues, in particular AIDS. Among them was the irrepressible Larry Kramer, who wrote "A Normal Heart," and who rants like a banshee when fired up. In one particular monologue he raised an audible guffaw from the audience when he noted that Abraham Lincoln was a gay American. Kramer doesn’t take audible guffaws at his announcements lightly. He was immediately fired up, challenging the audience to defend their skepticism of this claim. It seems Larry knew more than he revealed to us that night.

In a new book titled The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, C.A. Tripp (a psychologist, influential gay writer and former sex researcher for Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey) concludes that Lincoln was indeed homosexual (others, including Carl Sandburg have hinted at this, only to have such passages in their books later edited out, it appears). From the review of Tripp’s book in The New York Times:

The subject of the 16th president’s sexuality has been debated among scholars for years. They cite his troubled marriage to Mary Todd and his youthful friendship with Joshua Speed, who shared his bed for four years. Now, in a new book, C. A. Tripp also asserts that Lincoln had a homosexual relationship with the captain of his bodyguards, David V. Derickson, who shared his bed whenever Mary Todd was away.

In "The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln," …Mr. Tripp…tries to resolve the issue of Lincoln’s sexuality once and for all. The author, who died in 2003, two weeks after finishing the book, subjected almost every word ever written by and about Lincoln to minute analysis. His conclusion is that America’s greatest president, the beacon of the Republican Party, was a gay man.

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There’s no denying it: In my lifetime the quality of life for openly gay people has dramatically improved. As a gay American, I consider that a testament to the good hearts and sense of fairness in straight Americans. And in those quieter moments, when I’m not focussed on the scapegoating and wedge politics, I’m deeply grateful for this. I remember what it was like before, and I don’t imagine for even a moment that all the credit for the improvements belongs to the radical activists. Much of it belongs to the mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers who demonstrate braver love and truer loyalty to their gay family members than I thought possible when growing up in a small town in Ohio.

There’s some introspection going on among gay leaders in America, however, following the devastating defeat for gay marriage at the ballot boxes across the country. According to today’s New York Times:

Leaders of the gay rights movement are embroiled in a bitter and increasingly public debate over whether they should moderate their goals in the wake of bruising losses in November when 11 states approved constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriages.

In the past week alone, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay and lesbian advocacy group, has accepted the resignation of its executive director, appointed its first non-gay board co-chairman and adopted a new, more moderate strategy, with less emphasis on legalizing same-sex marriages and more on strengthening personal relationships.

The leadership of the Human Rights Campaign, at a meeting last weekend in Las Vegas, concluded that the group must bow to political reality and moderate its message and its goals. One official said the group would consider supporting President Bush’s efforts to privatize Social Security partly in exchange for the right of gay partners to receive benefits under the program.

"The feeling this weekend in Las Vegas was that we had to get beyond the political and return to the personal," said Michael Berman, a Democratic lobbyist and consultant who was elected the first non-gay co-chairman of the Human Rights Campaign’s board last week. "We need to reintroduce ourselves to America with the stories of our lives."

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