A Sham, but Not All Bad. A bit belatedly, here's last week's Washington Post take on World Wrestling Entertainment's "gay wedding" storyline between pro-wrestlers Billy and Chuck. Yes, it turned out to be as phony baloney as everything else in pro wrestling. But as reporter Hank Stuever points out, the absence of anti-gay invective, or overt audience hostility, says more about gay progress in the American heartland (those "red state" folks) than the decision by the elite New York Times to include same-sex commitment ceremonies among its Weddings announcement.
Remember Stalin? Zimbabwe's President (via rigged elections) Robert Mugabe has put in place a terror-driven land expropriation policy that has spread famine across his country, formerly a food exporter. He has also, notoriously, declared homosexuals "lower than dogs and pigs" and recently launched a campaign against "sexual perverts," avowing that gays have no rights at all. AllAfrica.com reports (via the Zimbabwe Standard) that "Mugabe has, in the past few years, openly paraded his deeply entrenched hatred for homosexuals, attacking them relentlessly"" So, why were members of the New York City Council's Black, Latino and Asian Caucus giving him such a warm reception last week? "I"m honored to host him," said Councilman Charles Barron, as quoted in Newsday. Can you imagine the outcry if it had been conservative council members who had hosted a rightwing, rather than leftwing, dictator with such a murderous and homophobic record?
Autopilot Activism. The
Commercial Closet site has a good piece on the refusal of some
die-hard lesbigay activists to give up their boycott against Coors
Brewing Company. Coors has just launched a new print campaign to
once again highlight its gay-positive policies:
Titled "Real History," the ad features a triangle with a list of the company's gay rights accomplishments including: adopting an inclusive non-discrimination policy in 1978, adding same-sex partner health benefits in 1995 and other milestones. Another ad to appear in January will feature six openly gay employees.
As the article notes, the roots of the trouble go back to a broader union boycott in the early 1970s. But while the union boycott ended long ago, and coalitions have been formed with Hispanic and African-American groups, Coors remains dogged by gay activists who, once having sunk their teeth into the company's skin, refuse to ever let go. Their main beef is that some Coors family members give money to conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation. But from what I can see, these are center-right conservative groups, and not the hard-core homo-haters of the religious right. Rather, it's as if the activists simply are unable to rationally revisit any stance once taken. That's one reason I tend to characterize them as "reactionaries," even though they like to call themselves "progressives."
I should note that not all activists are still in the anti-Coors
camp; even the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the
Human Rights Campaign have accepted funding from Coors in recent
years -- and been denounced for it by those even further to the
left.
--Stephen H. Miller