Some of you may have noticed that I post a fair bit about the gays, particularly on Balloon Juice.
Now, some people have asked, with some justification, “Sarah, as a proud, if fictional, Republican Catholic Woman, how is it that you, of all people, are a friend of the homosexual?”
My usual answer is that I am a 92 year old woman in nursing care who likes to get dressed up in bespoke clothing and expensive shoes, get trashed on fine Dutch ecstasy and then go out for a big night of opera and dinner followed by a great deal of loud repetitive music played in dark rooms full of sweaty men, which ends only when I wake up between a Brazilian masseur called João and his even cuter, even better hung brother Jorge, both of whom really like to share.
If it weren’t for the gays, I’d be ugly, naked, barefoot and dead of boredom within two weeks.
I love my gays. And Grammy never said no to a nice pair of boobs, either, if they were offered politely and with good grace.
Indeed, I love all colors of the LGBTTSQQIAPOAO rainbow because I believe that anyone should be able to do anything they wish with their hearts and other squishy pink bits as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, even if I do have problems remembering what that second Q and both of those As stand for.
It’s certainly better than when I was young, when the accepted terminology was either “queer”, “poor sad Uncle Tommy”, or “Mummy’s friend Roger who does such wonderful things with satin and whalebone”.
Things have certainly come a long way since then. I understand that in some states the gays are even allowed to buy houses together and visit each other in hospital (although not in the South, of course).
Even worse for the Christianists, a number of polls now suggest that a majority of the American population supports the idea of gay marriage, with dramatic increases in support in the last 12 months among Democrats, Independents and people aged under 35.
Most of this change in opinion seems to have come about due to the use by gay and lesbian people of such pernicious and unfair tactics as coming out to their families and workmates and brazenly pretending to be normal, ordinary people.
Thankfully for the opponents of gay marriage, Ben Fucking Shapiro, the man who puberty forgot – last seen revealing to a stunned world that MASH had an anti-war agenda – has his eyes open to this threat to everything that real Americans believe in, and has appeared on the 700 Club with Pat Robertson to sound the alarm.
In what looks for all the world like a really fucked up episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Pat laments how straight actors like Heath Ledger and Tom Hanks are being forced by Hollywood to play gay in order to win their Oscars.
Ben, in his turn, notes that:
They create a set of characters who you spend more time with, in many cases, than your own family unfortunately, people who are funny and witty and who you really want to spend hours on end with, and then they take those people and they have them pursue behaviors that really don’t agree and don’t accord with your personal values and it makes it very difficult for you to then disown those values. …. It makes it difficult for you to say I’m anti gay marriage but I like watching Will and Grace.
I suspect from his wistful tone that Ben likes watching Will and Grace a little too much, but also note that if his awareness of current gay friendly shows extends only to Will and Grace, he needs to get out a bit more more.
Anyway, gay marriage will come one day, my dears, even in America and despite Ben and Pat’s best efforts, because every day more and more people look at their gay children and their gay uncles and aunties and their gay workmates and, yes, even at that nice Doogie Howser, and realize that stopping them marrying the person they love just doesn’t make any sense.
I just hope Pat Robertson is still alive to see it.
[Personal message to Charles: Dearest, Don’t tell your mother but Aunty knows you’re gay. She’s just happy you two boys finally found each other.] [Cross posted at Sarah, Proud and Tall.]
General Stuck
er, so do I Sarah, but don’t you think it’s a might early in the morn for loose talk on “squishy pink bits” . Especially after the national trauma surviving an attack by Plan Weiner From Outer Space.
I ain’t even had my Quick Oats yet.
Citizen_X
This is another Lovecraft thing, right?
Ronbo
If you were an actual friend of GLBT Americans, you’d call on President Obama to take substantive action now. Instead, I hear calls for unquestioning support of President Obama; even after he says he is opposed to civil marriage “because God is in the mix”.
President Obama’s support of GLBT “Separate but Equal” policies deny GLBT Americans over 1000 benefits of federally-recognized marriage – today. President Obama’s Justice Department continues to categorize GLBT rights as the equavilent to the rights of pedophiles and felons.
Lofty words, carefully-crafted speeches and ringing oratory can not conceal inequality – unless inequality is your core belief. Waiting for evolution can be a long, long wait. Justice delayed is justice denied.
If you truly support marriage equality, you support equality NOW, not in some possible or random future. NOW it the only time we have.
TheMightyTrowel
SPT: My squishy pink bits salute you.
General Stuck
OH noes, here we go again, sigh
SonjasPanties
I don’t know what you mean by the Virgin Ben needing to get out more because the only TV show he can remember about a gay has been off the screen for 10 years since you mostly don’t need to go out to watch TV but I suppose he thought of it to cover his deeper affection for Glee or maybe he just writes very very slowly so that it takes 10 years from the time he starts polishing a piece until it’s ready to be unleashed on a world that may not be ready for it but in any event I would like to hear from Roger because a bit of scrimshaw always comes in handy.
Ash Can
I thought the whole idea of the FYWP system was to filter out the spambots.
Joseph Nobles
@General Stuck: You ain’t kiddin’.
Ronbo
I think this site deserves some free speech. Feel free to bigot over at Red State. They encouragge that kind of speech.
Ghanima Atreides
What is your favorite opera, Sarah?
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Ronbo:
What the hell are you talking about?
Gromitt Gunn (formerly JMC_in_the_ATL)
@Ronbo: Thank you for sharing your fascinating opinion. How do I subscribe to your newsletter?
Ronbo
IRT: General Stuck’s “OH noes, here we go again, sigh”.
Equality is like being pregnant, you aren’t just a little bit pregnant. One supports inequality if one belives that someone else is just a little bit equal.
Ronbo
@Gromitt Gunn (formerly JMC_in_the_ATL): (formerly JMC_in_the_ATL) Look in the dictionary under “equality”. Do I look you up under “Deep South”?
General Stuck
@Ronbo:
I hear ya, it’s like my grandpappy used to say during brief spells of sobriety, “One supports having smarts, if one belives someone else is a little bit dumb as a fence post”
Martin
And once again as one of those 2nd A’s, we’re ignored and overlooked by society. It’s okay, I should run out of tears soon.
Gromitt Gunn (formerly JMC_in_the_ATL)
@Ronbo: Oh, honey, I am a 39 year old gay man that has been out of the closet since my senior year of high school. I’ve been here, queer, and fabulous for over 20 years. Do you even know what an ACT UP demonstration was?
gil mann
Way to fire with fire there, anti-bigotry guy.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Ghanima Atreides:
I have a soft spot for Madam Butterfly and Tosca. Hammy but oh so satisfying.
eemom
FFS. Why is it that your beautiful posts attract the most psychotic trolls on the internet, Mrs. Sarah?
On another note:
hmm…..how do I say this politely and with good grace….
Bulworth
Tom Hanks played teh gay? I’m so behind on my Hollywood trivia.
Oops. Oh yeah, Philadelphia. Although I must say, Pat, Hanks has been in an awful lot of movies where he wasn’t teh gay and these movies kinda did pretty well.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Ronbo is young. He didn’t remember the early to mid-90’s when the louder and more strident push for gay equality got people beaten and killed. I do remember that, because some of my friends were assaulted. A bigger push means a bigger backlash. And all we got from that big push was DADT and DOMA. It actually set us back. It did more harm than good. Tactics like Ronbo is advocating failed the gay commumity. Worse, he is in here yelling at people who think gay marraige is a good thing, instead of getting off his sorry butt and actually working to change the people who actually disagree with him.
What has made a difference is people coming out to friends and coworkers. I am out to family, to friends, and to coworkers, even when it has been hard, and even when it risked my job. I have seen it change people.
What about you, Ronbo? Have you ever actually risked anything to be out, or do you just like storming into gay friendly spaces and making empty demands?
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Ronbo:
I do think Obama should do something about marriage equality, although I doubt he will this term for all sorts of reasons. I’ve never called for unquestioning support of him – it is our duty to question everything.
Yes, we have to fight for our rights, but I also think time is on our side. Equality now would be lovely, but I will take equality later if that’s what is on offer.
I’m not sure why you seem so grumpy at people who are on your team.
AnnaN
@General Stuck
I think Weiner would be hurt to know that, after all the time he spends at the gym getting hot, hard and bothered, that you would consider his pink bits squishy.
AnnaN
@General Stuck
Sarah Proud and Tall
@TheMightyTrowel:
Are they standing to attention when they salute?
General Stuck
@AnnaN:
Correlation is not necessarily causation
edit – or for that matter, ipso facto
eemom
@AnnaN:
tee hee.
But I’ll bet they’re pretty squishy now. Perhaps permanently.
Villago Delenda Est
The Virgin Ben really is a creepy looking shit, isn’t he?
Ghanima Atreides
@Sarah Proud and Tall: haha. me too.
bubblegum taste in opera, like my bubblegum taste in classical music. I only really like the balletists, the ones you can dance to, like Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov.
Ash Can
Why am I not surprised to learn that yet another prominent activist homophobe has, er, issues?
Xenocrates
@Villago Delenda Est: He reminds me of Daniel Radcliffe. The latter, however, actually seems to own a working brain. The Virgin? Notsomuch…
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Ghanima Atreides:
I like all sorts of orchestral and choral stuff – Britten, Shostakovich, R. Strauss, Berg, Corigliano – but I do like to be able to hum along when I’m at the opera, so none of that awful modern stuff for me.
Citizen_X
@Bulworth: He’s complaining about Hanks being “forced” (? The fuck? O_o) into gay cosplay way back in Philadelphia? That was done in 1993. Was Ben even born then?
I love how he goes on about being seduced (heh heh) into watching those funny and witty people that you want to spend hours upon hours with. Oh, gay Hollywood elite characters, I can’t quit you!
different church-lady
But then again, who doesn’t?
Uncle Glenny
Acting?
—-
Poor Pat and Ben are being oppressed because they can’t hate on gays. Ben would probably bully his own little brother if he was gay.
I don’t, as a rule, top, but for Ben I’d first start with a ball gag so I wouldn’t have to listen to him whine. Next, …. oh, I’d improvise.
Hmmm. My pink squishy bits aren’t so squishy.
Xecky Gilchrist
It makes it difficult for you to say I’m anti gay marriage but I like watching Will and Grace.
But that Murphy Brown, boy, that show just steams my fuckin’ clams.
Uncle Glenny
I think my favorite Verdi is La Forza del Destino. But I like all the Verdi and Puccini, and especially Handel. And if you think about it, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion is operatic in a way, and Verdi’s Requiem moreso.
“Haste, haste, to the cedar grove, where fragrant spices bloom, and amorous turtles love, beneath the deep’ning gloom!” –Solomon in a hurry to get some nookie
“Love and Hymen hand in hand, come adore the nuptial band!” –Voyeuristic chorus celebrating the above
daveNYC
He’s not Doogie Howser, he’s Dr. Horrible. And he doesn’t want to destroy the world, just rule it.
Yeah, it really sucks when people not like you are shown to be actually human, it makes it so difficult to get the five-minute-hate thing going on them.
brettvk
If the allegedly No Longer Virgin Ben had actually had his purity sullied, someone should be arrested for child molestation. I think he should have to prove he’s achieved puberty before he can comment on other people’s sex lives.
Tone In DC
Trolls at BJ.
Imagine that.
Next thing ya know, Ailes will be outed as a right wing idiot.
Jackman and Harris can actually sing. What next, Laura Prepon dancing?
Yutsano
@Sarah Proud and Tall: I guess no Klingon opera for you then my dear. :)
Martin
@daveNYC:
Someone doesn’t think very highly of their family:
“I’d love to spend more time with y’all, but you really aren’t funny or witty and I’d much rather hang out with Chris Colfer. It’s not me, it’s the fault of the gays for being so much more enjoyable to be around than you sorry heteros.”
Gravie
Ben and Pat’s counterparts in the 1800s were certain that slavery was mandated by God. At the turn of the 20th century, they fought to ban women from voting. And on it goes. They always lose eventually.
kdaug
@daveNYC: It’s also his birthday.
Steve
When I was a kid my grandma worked in a flower shop that was run by a couple of gay men. I have no idea if they were in a relationship although I guess maybe they were. They were close with my grandma so we had them over to the house quite a bit for family functions and such. One of them was a bit of a flamer and really hilarious. I believe he later died of AIDS which is sad to think of – this was the 80s after all.
You don’t necessarily get much exposure to “gay culture” growing up in suburbia, but my parents explained to me from a young age what it meant that these friends of ours were gay. They taught me that it didn’t matter but more importantly, they acted like it didn’t matter. These were simply friends of ours like any other.
So fast-forward to an episode later in life. I roomed with the same guy for all 3 years of law school, he had a steady girlfriend for much of it, but during the 3rd year he started to experiment a little bit. I was actually remarkably slow to catch on to the notion that he suddenly had all these new study partners. So one day he decides we should talk about it and he says to me, “Steve, I really should have brought this up before now, but you’ve probably noticed that I’ve been doing some new things in my personal life.”
And what amazed me was that my reaction was absolute and complete indifference. Like, if he’s happy in a relationship then I’m happy for him as a roommate, but that’s the full extent of it. It literally made no difference to me, which is surprising because I have as many unconscious prejudices as anyone else. And all I can think is, because it was important to my parents that I understand it makes no difference if someone is gay, I ended up taking that lesson to heart. It reminds me how important it is that I set the right examples for my own kids.
JGabriel
@SonjasPanties:
Nah. It’s because Ben plagiarizes, and couldn’t find anything less than ten years old to safely copy from.
.
asiangrrlMN
I salute you, Ms. Sarah, for being a friend of the homosexuals (how do you feel of the bis?). And I have an especially pair of tatas. I’m just sayin’.
Jay in Oregon
In that still, Ben Shapiro looks like the love child of Anton LaVey and Wednesday Addams.
Bobby Thomson
@JGabriel: Wrong Ben. Domenech is the plagiarist. Shapiro is the maiden.
Brachiator
@Sarah Proud and Tall:
Let’s see. A 92 year old Sarah would have been 24 in 1943. Some of your contemporaries, even strait laced Republicans, might have worked in a defense industry plant, or elsewhere, and might have discovered that they were gay, or entered into a “Boston marriage” of convenience (or otherwise) with a gay woman. Other women happily partied with gay people. For example,
Some women kept pushing the envelope. Others retreated into a more conventional life.
My former landlady, who died a few years ago in her 90s, was one of these women. Got married, raised a family. She was a teacher and a nurse. Her youth, soon after moving to Los Angeles, was distinctly unconventional.
Maybe Sarah ain’t telling all she knows.