Media directed at a Gay audience is a fairly recent development, but there have existed Lesbian and Gay characters in mainstream media for many, many years. Just the other night, I was watching a classic movie from 1932 called A Farewell To Arms. I was surprised to see among the supporting characters both a Lesbian and a Gay man, nursing secret same-gender crushes on the leading man (Gary Cooper) and leading lady(Helen Hayes), respectively. Believe it or not, some Gay characters even appeared in popular comic strips! An underlying theme of homo-eroticism existed in the long-running Tintin series from Europe, and has been speculated about for decades. The virulently anti-Gay response generated when I discussed this theme in an online Tintin forum triggered a rage in me that festered for months. I channeled it into exploration of comic strip archive, and the result was "Tintin Uncloseted", surely one of the most controversial three-part essays I'll ever write. I confirmed to my satisfaction that the strip featured both a Gay couple (the notorious Thom(p)son Twins) and an unrequited love affair between the two leading characters, Tintin and Captain Haddock. To my huge delight, I also identified what I believe to be the first Gay love story in graphic novel form, 1960's deliciously nuanced Tintin In Tibet. It gave me great satisfaction to dispel the air of pederasty that hung over Haddock's relationship with Tintin, yet still affirm their mutual love. The strip's chronicler, Belgian cartoonist Hergé, emerged from my research as both a maverick storyteller and a genius of subtly-drawn character motivation. Decades before JK Rowling revealed the homosexual orientation of Dumbledore, Hergé proved that children's literature authors weren't averse to incorporating Gay characters. I am exceedingly proud of having reclaimed this important artifact of Gay history; it's the one bonafide achievement that this blog can boast of. To those bigoted comic strip fans who launched me on this journey of discovery, I've got just one thing to say: WOOOAH!
What's the point in calling your group a Stonewall Democratic Club if your activities don't resemble the Stonewall rebellion at all? What good does it do to make outraged public statements about Peter LaBarbera or Tony Perkins or Fred Phelps when you ignore radical Bible bigots in your own town? How can you justify putting so many resources into Pride celebrations when demonizing doctrine gets taught within a few blocks of your Gay Community Center? What are we so friggin' proud of? The way we let the religious Right shove a boot in our behinds year after year? When I saw bogus Gay activists once again committing movement sabotage with a replay of the ill-conceived Million F*g March, I blew my top! I had to find a release valve for my frustration. It was June 2009, so the idea of writing a Gay Pride Month essay occurred to me. However, I was in no mood to pen a treacly Stonewall commemoration. Nor did I want to do some florid biographical piece on a Gay figure from history. I wanted to write a clarion call to action, and so I did. I linked the necessity of confronting religious bigots directly to the necessity of using religious faith as a weapon in our struggle. The idea of holding “counter-sermons” on the premises of hate-spewing churches had been incubating in my mind for a long time; I fleshed it out on paper and put the concept out there for people to mull over. If anybody mulled it over for even half a minute, I’d be surprised! Writing the three parts of “March Down Babylon” was probably just an exercise in futility, but anybody who reads it has got to know it came directly from my heart. It’s the purest expression of my outrage at being caught between Christian and LGBT worlds that should have never been separated.
Undoubtedly, arrogant leadership is a problem that has plagued American Civil Rights movements since their inception, but Gay Rights seems to have more than its fair share of overbearing people! Groups like HRC, NGLTF, Servicemen United and even individual bloggers like Wayne Besen, Pam Spaulding and John Aravosis often seem to thrive on condescension: We know what’s best for Gay people, so don’t question or criticize us! A recent email I got from Mr. Aravosis was so damn snooty, I’m surprised he could see clearly enough to write it; typing messages with your nose in the air must be awfully hard to do! It was typical of our self-appointed “leadership” to convene an exclusive meeting in Dallas, Texas last May and come up with a list of principles they expect every activist to follow. (Lest I be accused of similar arrogance, let me acknowledge that I recently circulated a self-authored list called The Ten Commandments of Gay Activism. However, my purpose in doing so was to stimulate conversation; I'm not egotistical enough to think I can actually impose Commandments on anyone, nor am I dumb enough to try to!) The Dallas group made no attempt to solicit the input of rank-and-file LGBT folk. How presumptuously top-down can you get? However, I was willing to give their Dallas Principles a fair evaluation, and I found that some were well worth adopting. I feel especially positive about the mandate that LGBT equality not be considered a partisan issue. Other principles are unacceptable, though, like the contention that faith should never play a part in our struggle. I wrote “Democratizing The Dallas Principles” to simultaneously denounce elitist activism and salvage the work of the Dallas activists by suggesting ways to make it more inclusive, representative and effective. These principles are fated to become an ambitious idea that died a-borning unless that happens.
I've always known that individuals who challenge binary gender norms face a high degree of hostility; being an effeminate male, I’m probably more sensitive to it than other Gay men. Yet even I was caught of guard by the degree of disrespect shown to South Africa’s Caster Semenya, a female track star whose masculine appearance and impressive race times prompted the International Association of Athletics Federations to question her gender. Innocently, she submitted to some of their humiliating tests, only to stand by horrified and helpless as the IAAF made a mockery of its own privacy rules. Her test results were maliciously leaked to the media, resulting in her being treated like a modern-day Hottentot Venus; the whole sports world started speculating about her genitalia! Since late last year, a cloud of prurient speculation has hung over Ms. Semenya’s head; she is widely rumored to be an intersex woman, but IAAF doctors have declined to confirm that diagnosis(small wonder, since human gender is difficult to pin down scientifically). Her birth certificate ought to be enough to establish her female gender, but the IAAF prefers to play God! While they’ve allowed Ms. Semenya to keep her past medals, they're evidently not going to allow her to win any more. She currently finds herself barred from track and field competition. I’m encouraged to see that the suicidal feelings she reportedly suffered in September have given way to righteous anger. Recently approached by the Associated Press for an interview, she fumed: “I have been subjected to unwarranted and invasive scrutiny of the most intimate and private details of my being. Why would I want to talk to (the) media? I don’t want to talk to you!” Tragically, her promising career has very likely been cut short. If that's the case, though, she deserves one Hell of a consolation prize in the form of millions of dollars in civil suit damages! What do you bet that attorneys will be competing to represent her? I felt, and continue to feel, such strong solidarity with this wronged woman that I wrote “I Am Caster Semenya” over a single sleepless night. I hope my two-part cry of indignation can raise consciousness about persecuted gender-neutral people.
I just got finished reading a statement from British “queer” activist Peter Tachell in which he defends a Bible bigot’s “right” to loudly condemn Gay people in a public venue. Nothing irritates me more than to see a supposed advocate for Gay Rights bending over backwards to accommodate religious hatemongers! What do they expect to get out of it? Do they really think a world that encourages genocidal speech is safe for them to live in? Mr. Tachell needs to get himself a copy of Dr. John Shelby Spong’s fiery denunciation of religious bigotry, published in October of 2009. Spong lays it out strong: There is no room in a democratic society for heterosexist terrorism! And there’s no room in the Christian faith for those who think getting baptized gives them permission to demonize God’s LGBT creations. There’s nothing to be gained from debating, humoring or in any way encouraging those bent on reviving outdated Levitican law. Dr. Spong finally realized this truth, and he articulated it beautifully. He went even further(as well he should have), rejecting the un-Christian leadership of highly-placed false prophets like the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope. Ignorance can’t hide behind fancy ecclesiastical titles! Such a forthright affirmation of the Savior’s Gospel deserved showcasing in a two-part essay, so Christ, The Gay Martyr did the honors. It was a pleasure for me to present John Shelby Spong at his very best, and wholeheartedly agree with him that “You Can’t Go Halfway” . . . you’ve got to go all the way if you want Heaven as your home!
Readers of a blog seldom know what the blogmaster may be going through behind the scenes. The company I worked for was re-organized, and I was sent to a new department. Between March and October of 2009, I suffered persistent sexual orientation harassment at the hands of my new supervisor and some of her staff. It involved open ridicule of my personal appearance, being told that I was "dumb" and unsuited to work in the department, being given bogus work procedures to follow, being pressured to resign, having my personal property stolen and, worst of all, being ordered to take part in Medicare prescription drug fraud. (I refused to do so, and that refusal hastened the end of my employment.) Stuffed Animal may come across like a firebrand on the printed page, but in my true identity of Don Charles, a mild-mannered call center agent, I often felt as helpless as a baby. I’d run into hetero-bigotry on the job a few years before, but compared to the treatment I got at “Hydra” Health Systems, that was just a bad dream! A more horrendous work experience is hard to imagine; I was regularly browbeaten, manipulated and demeaned. It did my ferocious online image no good to share that experience with readers, but I knew I had to do so if anything positive were ever to come of it. The four-part narrative I eventually named “Diary Of A Gay Wage Slave” began as “The Invisible Monster”, an less ambitious piece about the unique forms of workplace harassment that Gay employees face. Up until recently, you could find that essay posted in the diary section of Pam’s House Blend; but for this blog, I decided to make the monster as visible as I could. I worked up scribbled notes into a diary covering my entire one-year-eleven-month tenure as a “Hydra” employee. Names were changed for legal reasons, but anybody who ever worked at this corrupt company will easily recognize it. An update: I've expanded the diary into five parts and moved it to the Special Features section of my new blog, Ignorance Is Plentiful. I've replaced it here with a new Gay Rights manifesto called "Trouble The Waters."
For years, I waited to write a 10th anniversary commemoration of the 2000 Gay film festival favorite Big Eden. Finally, in January of 2010, it was time. I was in a thoroughly dour mood after writing "Diary Of A Gay Wage Slave", but reviewing this wonderful DVD raised my spirits. After watching far too many poorly-acted, semi-pornographic Gay films, to say Thomas Bezucha’s small town romantic comedy was a breath of fresh air is an understatement. There are so many things I love about Big Eden: The fact that Gay and Straight people aren't pitted against each other; the fact that the male couple is intercultural; the fact that elderly people have major roles; the fact that family values are emphasized(real family values, not the fake Tony Perkins kind); the fact that vintage Country tunes feature on the (never-released) soundtrack; and especially the fact that Gay men and Lesbians are fully integrated into this rural community. There are no dimly lit Gay bars to be found anywhere in this film! The closing scene, where Gay and Straight couples share a public dance floor looks so natural, it's disarming. A Gay director dared to visualize the kind of prejudice-free world we’re all supposed to be striving for, but that proved to be more than a lot of folks could handle. They knew how to react to another bad movie about “queers”. They weren’t prepared for an excellent movie about human beings who just happened to be homosexual. To date, nobody has made a finer film about same-gender love, and that fact deserves celebrating. Incidentally, after much behind-the-scenes fireworks on my part, amazon.com has finally removed the word “queers” from its online review of Big Eden. Thank the Lord for small victories! It’s not just that the pejorative was inappropriate, it was false advertising! As the title of my essay confirms, “Nobody’s Queer In Big Eden.”
Previously, I've called attention to the shocking anti-Gay atmosphere found on the island of Jamaica, where bloodthirsty mobs chase LGBT folk through the streets, and hate crimes are all but encouraged by the local government. More recently, I learned that similar barbaric conditions exist all over the continent of Africa. Gay and Transsexual Africans live under constant threat of rape, assault, murder, deportation, punitive fines, imprisonment and even the death penalty! Small wonder that they suffer from depression, anxiety and low self-esteem, and HIV transmission among same-gender-loving African men is off the charts. In “Africa Screams”, I juxtaposed medical data with information about anti-Gay persecution in several African countries. Using this method, I proved that heterosexism is more than just prejudice. It’s a documentable health hazard! This essay probably has the most sexually explicit content of any I’ve ever written, but the graphic descriptions were necessary to get my point across. Rev. Candace Chellew-Hodge, who cross-posted this piece on her Whosoever website, thinks I did.
When I realized the end of this blog was near, I asked God to let me send it off with a “bang”. Over the course of three months, I cobbled together the trio of provocative essays that make up my March 2010 post “Life During Wartime.” Individually, these essays sum up everything I tried to achieve with Christ, The Gay Martyr: Consciousness-raising about the need for dignity, the need to use religion as a liberation tool, and the need to become a more potent force politically. Other than my pal Jerry Maneker, nobody in the Gay blogosphere is treating these issues, at least not in the way I treat them. All too often, Gay blogs are vehicles for gossip, sarcasm, frivolity, rude humor, radical posturing and pornographic content. Posting is done too hastily, and the messages lack substance. Just as often, evidence of a blogmaster’s raging ego is so strong, it practically slaps you upside the head! I've got an ego, too, but with CTGM, I tried not to be the center of attention. I wanted give God the glory and give important issues the priority. I believed in putting the maximum amount of careful thought into what I posted, even if weeks went by between updates; and if I slapped anybody, I did so to wake them up out of a complacent stupor, and never for provocation’s sake alone! I wanted to improve the brand, and with God’s help, I think I was successful.
Corporate encroachment on the United States government continues unabated under the Obama administration. Truth to tell, it's accelerating! That’s alarming enough, but when you see millions of Progressives eager to be led down the garden path, it’s absolutely frightening! HR 3590, signed into law on 21 March 2010, is one of the biggest taxpayer giveaways to Wall Street ever: Mandated private health insurance buy-ins for everyone! Tax penalties for those who refuse to buy in! Weak cost controls! Unsustainable government subsidies! In other words, a disaster! President Obama and the Democrats packaged this legislation, most of it written by AHIP(America's Health Insurance Plans), as a gift to Main Street. Republicans played into their hands by fabricating such wild falsehoods about it, they lost all credibility. Meanwhile, a chorus of Left-leaning pundits and bloggers cheered the bogus reform legislation on, despite its lack of a publicly-funded option and many other red flags. A handful of Progressive activists like Ralph Nader, Taylor Marsh, Marcia Angell and Jane Hamsher were brave enough to put the inconvenient truth out there, but nobody wanted to hear it. Even if they had, I doubt those scattered voices would've been enough to stop the juggernaut gravy train bound for the health insurance industry's bottom line. I was (and still am) disgusted at the Left Wing; for daring to give Democrats permission to serve the fat cats, I nailed it to the wall! Likening their disfunctional relationship to a well-known comic book love triangle, I concluded that “It’s All About Veronica”. It's certainly not about the American taxpayer! More and more, I think political Independents are the only ones who can save our democracy from a Trojan Horse-style corporate takeover.
I've written a bonus essay for you. It's brand new. I call it "Their Worm Never Dies", a phrase taken from the 23rd chapter of Matthew. The sinister title mirrors its sinister subject matter: Child sexual abuse by Catholic priests. Like most CTGM content, it's plain-spoken and controversial, and there's a revelation in it that you may find shocking. "Worm" puts my feelings about Catholicism on record in no uncertain terms. Thank you in advance for reading it, and . . . goodbye! This blog is now inactive. I've appreciated your patronage these past five years. Some Christ, The Gay Martyr essays have been disseminated elsewhere on the Web without my knowledge, but that's fine. Feel free to do that. Just remember to credit me, Don Charles "Stuffed Animal", as author so that you won't be guilty of plagiarism! Visit me at my new blog, Ignorance Is Plentiful, where another Dumb Dora Awards ceremony is liable be held any day now.
