| If
you ask me, the way 2005 has kicked off suggests Rod Serling is alive
and well and frisky. Only Mr. “Twilight Zone” could’ve
thunked up the funked up happenings of late.
In mid-January we heard that some 10 years ago the Air Force considered
developing a chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers hot, hot, hot
for each other. The ensuing rampant gay behavior would, the proposal claimed,
send morale a’tumbling.
This sex bomb didn’t reach the development stage. Maybe the military
knew it would have chances in the future to practice gay sex as humiliation,
like around, oh, let me think now, 2004. Or, maybe it feared the enemy’s
morale would actually soar.
Another bit of bizarreness also came last month when President Geoerge
W. Bush offered the country his inaugural address. He said Americans “cannot
carry the message of
freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time.” Seriously.
I waited in vain for the disclaimer: “Unless bigotry helps get you
elected. Then it’s dandy.”
A few days later Colorado Republican Sen. Wayne Allard,
a force behind last year’s failed Federal Marriage Amendment, started
that blasted business over again. He reintroduced legislation that would
amend the Constitution to keep same-sex couples the heck away from marriage.
He heard Bush’s unspoken message, and built on it. By God, we’re
not only going to use bigotry, we’re going to enshrine it! Can’t
have too much of a bad thing.
In the same week word arrived that the new secretary of education had rolled
up her sleeves and taken on the greatest ill in the land: a cartoon bunny.
Secretary Margaret Spellings wrote PBS about an episode of its “Postcards
from Buster,” in which the title rabbit visits maple sugar farms
in Vermont. During his visit, Buster meets, among other characters, two
lesbian couples. Sounds to me like Buster is a darn good reporter, checking
out two things that make Vermont famous, maple sugaring and civil unioning.
Spellings wrote, “Congress’ and the (Education) Department’s
purpose in funding this programming certainly was not to introduce this
kind of subject matter to children.” She also demanded the government’s
money back. PBS
immediately promised not to distribute the episode, although the Boston
station that produces the show still plans to air it.
Apparently the episode doesn’t even mention gay issues; showing that
lesbian couples simply exist is enough to whip the secretary into a froth.
Or perhaps she thought, given the election results, assaulting a gay-friendly
show would be
starting her tenure with a surefire winner.
She has a mandate against curious rabbits. Rod, it’s got to be you
pulling the strings.
I saved my favorite for last. SpongeBob SquarePants, Barney, Winnie the
Pooh and other cartoon characters star in a music video remake of “We
Are Family.” The video, made by the We Are Family Foundation, will
be sent to 61,000 American schools and is designed to foster diversity
and tolerance. The foundation’s website asks visitors to pledge to
respect people’s race, etc., and sexual orientation; the video itself
doesn’t address sexuality.
Conservative Christian groups Focus on the Family and the American Family
Association, probably peeved at a different group using the word “family,” are
behaving like Chicken Little on crystal meth. Focus’s James Dobson
said, “Their inclusion of the reference to ‘sexual identity’ within
their ‘tolerance pledge’ is not only unnecessary, but it crosses
a moral line.”
Dobson even brought up SpongeBob at a pre-inaugural dinner for Republican
bigwigs. Though SpongeBob’s creator keeps saying the innocent character
who lives in a pineapple under the sea is asexual, conservatives have latched
onto the poor yellow fellow as a gay bogeyman.
The radical right absorbed by an animated sponge. Rod, you’ve topped
yourself. |
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