The Dumb Dora Award for Elitism goes to
The New York City Bar Association
The New York City Bar Association
If you’ve ever listened to Progressive talk radio and TV, you may, like me, have learned to dread the ritual of Left Wing activists jawboning a topic to death. Not only that, but doing it with such insufferable condescension that you want to smack them! They sound so elitist and out-of-touch with everyday people, you wonder if they might be career politicians in disguise. A case in point: Snobby, “professional” Gay strategists, talking down their noses about marriage equality.
I’ve been wanting to lay a Dumb Dora Award on some of these pompous jackasses real bad! I finally got my chance after reading an 8 May 2009 news item at www.advocate.com. At a recent legal seminar sponsored by The New York City Bar Association, strategist snobbery was on full display: Columbia Law School professor Katherine Franke indicted marriage equality crusaders for casting “a judgmental shadow” on people who don’t want to get married. Really? On what planet? She went on to claim that marriage activism has a “crowding-out effect” on issues of more importance to LGBT folk. Who is she, then, presuming to prioritize issues for others?
Marriage activism isn’t her problem; it’s arrogance! But she’s no worse than New York Law School professor Arthur Leonard, who blamed marriage equality’s newsworthiness on the media’s obsession with “sexy subjects”. Silly me! I thought it was a Civil Rights issue. Sex isn’t what first pops into my mind when I think of marriage, and I seriously doubt it was on the minds of those courageous Gay couples who sued for the right to wed.
Leonard’s biggest complaint is that the media makes Gay people “look like we’re all obsessed with marriage.” Or did he mean to say obsessed with sex, since he doesn’t draw a distinction? The nutty professor went on to opine that “marriage has turned into something like General Motors or AIG! It’s just this enormous thing that nobody knows what to do with, but you can’t let it fail because it’s too big.” I’m sorry the Professor doesn’t know what to do with marriage. It also pains me that credible current events metaphors seem beyond his capability!
Only attorney Roberta Ann Kaplan was able to assess the issue without stumbling over her ego. She observed that with marriage rights, “you’re essentially recognizing very fundamentally the equality of Gay men and Lesbians.” The lady couldn’t be more on the money; too bad she’s wasting her superior intellect hanging around clueless snobs like Katherine Franke and Arthur Leonard. As they say at the United Negro College Fund, a mind is a terrible thing to waste!
Pontificating absurdly about what Civil Rights LGBT folk should and shouldn't want is hardly a constructive way to spend your time, especially if you call yourself an equality advocate. There's far too much of this nonsense going on; last month, I heard the same kind of elitist Gay "strategizing" on a broadcast of Pacifica's "Grit Radio" talk show. Enough, already! As Elvis Presley used to sing: A little less conversation and a little more action! Instead of trying to micromanage equality movement agendas, the Katherine Frankes and Arthur Leonards in our midst should try climbing down from their ivory towers and bearing down on the issues they feel most strongly about. There are always more openings for laborers than supervisors!
The Dumb Dora Award for Tragic Naïveté goes to
Dan Choi, Sandy Tsao and Victor Fehrenbach
Dan Choi, Sandy Tsao and Victor Fehrenbach
First Lieutenant Dan Choi and Second Lieutenant Sandy Tsao are both out of a job. They're in the process of being drummed out of the US military, and it's partially their own fault. The US military's "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" restriction on openly Gay soldiers bit them in the ass, but it didn't have to happen the way it did. They asked for it! They believed Barack Obama's campaign pledge to repeal the discriminatory rule. That was pathetic enough, but it got worse. They were such eager beavers, they couldn't wait until after he'd fulfilled his pledge: They came bursting out of the closet beforehand, foolishly counting on him to block their discharges. What a rude surprise they got when he didn't!
The growing likelihood that our President will renege on this promise makes them look even more foolish. I hate that this happened, but it was entirely predictable. When will Gay people learn to stop putting faith in politicians and their promises? Choi and Tsao are old enough to remember the Clinton era debacle that led to DADT's implementation in 1993. Too bad they didn't take any lessons from it! Their tragic naïveté has cost them their military careers and retirement benefits.
Hopefully, they'll channel the hurt into meaningful activism, but aside from Dan Choi's high-profile appearances at a few Gay Rights demonstrations, I have yet to see that happen. Neither Choi nor Lieutenant Colonel Victor Fehrenbach, another recent DADT casualty, want President Obama to issue an Executive Order suspending the policy; both supported a "go slow" legislative solution when they appeared on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show". Whatever happened to the eager beaver approach? Isn’t it kinda late to start acting timid, guys?
Lt. Col. Fehrenbach attended the controversial Stonewall commemorative cocktail party that was thrown at the White House last month. He was ostensibly there to bring the urgency of repealing DADT home to President Obama. Instead, he stood dumbfounded while Obama politely told him that he had no intention of stopping his impending discharge. Later, Fehrenbach returned to "The Rachel Maddow Show", expressing muted disappointment but overflowing with aw-shucks gratitude for having gotten an audience with the President.
As I sat in front of my TV watching him punk out, I wanted to scream: "You dumb @#%%!!! Don't you have any backbone at all? Where's your outrage?" I'm sorry if that sounds cold-hearted, but it's the truth. Dude hasn't got enough ambition to get angry about the injustice that's being done him, so why should anybody else care? Aren't American soldiers supposed to be famous for their fierce fighting spirit? Maybe Victor Fehrenbach doesn't have what it takes to be one after all?
The Dumb Dora Award for Callous Sensationalism goes to
The Advocate and Tim Dean
On June 6, 2009, The Advocate had a twisted little Pride Month surprise hidden in its online media reviews: A plug for a new book called Unlimited Intimacy. Supposedly, it’s an academic tome, but judging from the description given, and the lurid jacket reproduction featuring nude male buttocks, it’s really something else. I’d call it exploitation of dangerous sexual practice for the sake of sensationalism!
The practice in question is “barebacking”, the act of indulging in anal sex sans protection. According to The Advocate’s reviewer, Unlimited Intimacy is “an academic but insightful look at the evolution and meaning of ‘barebacking’ in Gay culture. (The author) does not make any social arguments about ‘barebacking’, but rather looks at the surrounding subculture from an anthropological standpoint, attempting to unravel the point of view, motivations, and interests of its inhabitants.” He concludes that the book is “a smart, unbiased read for anyone seeking greater understanding of the phenomenon.”
Smart? That’s not a word I’d use to describe anybody who’s “unbiased” about “barebacking”. Unprotected sex can kill! Why is it that some of us still want to ignore that inconvenient truth? Personally, I’d rather have limits on my intimacy than on my life expectancy! I’d also rather read books and book reviews by writers who give a damn about my kind.
It offends me much that Professor Tim Dean, the author of Unlimited Intimacy, would undertake a cold-blooded anthropological study of self-destructive Gay men as if they were some kind of exotic lost tribe. It offends me even more that a Gay publication would promote such a study uncritically. I’m not surprised, though. After all, The Advocate’s writers delight in calling LGBT folk “queers” as often as possible. Did you think that was just innocent mischief on their part? Think again, sugar! If you look closely at the features they publish, you’ll begin to discern what they really think of us “queers”. I’d tell you what I really think of The Advocate, but I’m a Christian . . . I’m not supposed to use that kind of language!
Didn't I predict that The Advocate would be (dis)honored a third time? Who knew it would happen so soon? Eventual induction into my Fool's Hall of Fame looks like a sure thing!
Seriously, I struggled over whether a Dumb Dora Award was appropriate for this particular incident. It's arguably too repugnant to merely be called dumb. In my opinion, Unlimited Intimacy should be sold with a public health warning stamped across the cover! I lived through the 1980s, and I saw HIV/AIDS wipe out a whole generation of Gay and Bisexual men. What's more, hundreds of Black men are still sero-converting; I've seen firsthand how negatively toxic AIDS medications have impacted my friends' quality of life and financial resources. And yes, people still die from the disease.
Safer sex is essential for our survival! No contradictory messages can be tolerated. Behind the decisions to write, publish and publicize this reprehensible book lies a total disregard for our humanity. When I read the blurb, I felt the same way I did many years ago after being beaten up in Math class. My Math teacher stood by silently and watched while a classmate called me "f*ggot" and tried to pound me into a pulp! How to describe that awful feeling? The title of a Top Ten R & B song written by the late Michael Jackson sums it up best: "They Don't Care About Us."
The Dumb Dora Award for Offensive Imagery goes to
Noam Gonick
Noam Gonick
I thought the "Million F*g March" was the epitome of Gay self-sabotage. I didn't think anything could surpass its level of idiocy. I was wrong!
When I saw the photo of half-naked men with wet underwear on their heads, and the words "Gay Pride" in the caption, I thought: "Lord, no. What now?" Here's what: In a feature dated 11 June 2009, The Huffington Post reported: "A Canadian filmaker has made a movie for Gay Pride week featuring football players getting waterboarded with rainbow-colored underwear covering their noses and mouths." "Waterboarding" is a form of physical torture associated with Iraq's infamous Abu Ghraib Prison.
"Director Noam Gonick . . . intended to make a political point by using the waterboarding imagery," the article went on to say. Can you can figure out what kind of political point? Try to discern it from Gonick's ridiculous explanation! "Conquest is not only about territory, or oil, or puppet dictatorships," claims the creep. "It's sexual, too . . . it's about (how) we're willing to do anything to get the approval of the State."
No, it isn't. It's about how Noam Gonick is willing to do anything to publicize himself! The craven opportunism of some LGBT folk is completely off the chain! There's no Gay myth or stereotype too degrading or disturbing for them to exploit. Shock value-loving visual artists and writers thrive on this kind of "f*gsploitation", so I'm not surprised that a filmmaker is the culprit here; but eroticizing torture? Fetishizing its victims? Drawing parallels between torture and Gay sex? That takes "f*gsploitation" to an all-time low. It's disgusting! Human Rights advocates, torture survivors everywhere and the US Military should all denounce this sick film in the strongest terms possible!
When it comes to distorting Gay identity, nobody does it better than Gay artists, writers and filmmakers on the radical fringe. They've got a grab bag full of bigotry-reinforcing concepts that they're eager to share with the world, all turning on a single theme: Gay = Sex! From that point of departure, it's a short leap to Gay = Kinky Sex; Gay = Promiscuous Sex; Gay = Humiliating Sex; Gay = Coercive, Dangerous Sex; and Gay = Sex Devoid of Love.
Same-gender loving people get slimed but good on this trip to the cutting edge! Why aren't we alarmed by these inaccurate, sensationalist depictions? If they originated from Right Wing sources, we'd surely be up in arms. Ideology isn't the issue here: Whenever and wherever ignorance passes itself off as artistic expression, condemnation is warranted.
The Dumb Dora Award for Offensive Legal Opinions Goes to
Apologist Attorneys
Apologist Attorneys
Many Gay activists feigned deafness when, during the presidential campaign, Senator Barack Obama expressed opposition to marriage equality. Now that the Obama Administration is aggressively defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court, many are feigning shock. That's not the worst kind of feigning that's going on, either.
A battery of self-proclaimed law experts (including Liberal icon Laurence Tribe) has emerged to put an implausible Gay-friendly spin on the administration's legal brief. This loathsome document calls same-gender marriage a financial burden on the State, and likens LesBiGay unions to incest and pedophila! It reveals Obama's true colors to be anything but a rainbow stripe.
Yet, apologist lawyers insist otherwise: "When a Federal statute is challenged as being unconstitutional, the policy of the Justice Department, with very few exceptions, is to defend the Federal law, even if there's a new administration that doesn't agree with it," squawks Georgetown Law professor Nan Hunter to The Washington Blade. Supporting her lame-brained logic is former Clinton Administration attorney Robert Raben, who babbles: "(There are) tiny, tiny exceptions . . . when the statute is otherwise unlawful, (but DOMA) doesn't even come close."
Raben scales unprecedented heights of Uncle Tom-ism when he judges some of the brief's incendiary language "really sensitive" and opines that "they've gone out of their way to (argue) Gay marriage can be a great thing." Great like incest and pedophilia?
Conservative pundit Dale Carpenter has a firmer grip on reality. Writing at the Volokh Conspiracy website, he notes that the brief parrots "what same-sex marriage opponents have argued for years" and attacks "just about every single variation of an argument that Gay-Rights scholars and litigants have made over the past 30 years." The best response to apologist lawyers has come from blogger Joe Sudbay. Posting June 13th at americablog.com, he writes: "It's shocking, how many people viewed yesterday's DOMA discussion through their own purely intellectual, legal lens. The condescending tone from some of the legal types, both Straight and Gay, all Democrat, was insulting, demeaning, and horribly out of touch . . . for some, the decision whether to defend or oppose DOMA is purely a legal exercise. For many of us, it's our lives!"
For spinning legal ethics into butter, "friends" in high places like Nan Hunter and Robert Raben deserve a Dumb Dora Award. On the other hand, Joe Sudbay deserves an entirely different kind of honor: A round of applause for displaying backbone, something that's shamefully rare in Gay online commentary.
Ignorance is plentiful, my darlings. Never doubt that fact! In Gay activist circles, we seem to have more than our fair share. If you have examples of idiotic undermining of the Gay Rights movement, please bring them to my attention! Shoot me the disgraceful details via my blog comments section. Stay tuned for the 3rd Dumb Dora Awards, no doubt coming sooner than you expect to this same web address!
