“…But We Don’t Talk about It”

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First published July 23, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

RECENTLY I WAS TALKING with a young man about his relationship with his family and asked if his family knew he was gay.

"They know," he said, "but we don't talk about it."

I don't remember my exactly response, but it was something like "Yeah, I understand" or something else equally bland. But sometimes the things you yourself say can nag at you as much as things other people say. And on reflection, I think I was wrong in tacitly agreeing that "not talking" about it is all right.

I think we should talk about "it." Not "it" meaning our sexual activities, not meaning some "lifestyle," but "it" meaning our lives.

After all, you would talk about your life if you were heterosexual. Heterosexual family members talk about their lives all the time. They talk about who they are dating and what that person is like. They talk about who they are living with (roommate, lover, spouse), where they went on vacation and with whom, their out-of-town visitors, the parties and other social events they went to and with whom and so forth.

None of these things are taken to be talking about "it" - if "it" means their sex lives. In fact, it is because they talk about these various aspects of their lives that we can learn that heterosexuality is not just about sex, not even some uniform "lifestyle;" it is about leading a rich, full, active life which comes in a wide range of varieties.

The same is true for gays and lesbians. If you do not talk about your life, the range of activities you engage in, the important people in your life and what they mean to you, your family is left to their imaginings. And because of the so-called "vanity of minor differences," they may well exaggerate the significance of a different sexual orientation.

Differences there are, to be sure, and there is no reason to downplay them: the influence of childlessness, the psychological dynamics of same-sex bonding, greater time for social and cultural interests, and the grating fact of ongoing prejudice in some regions. But the human essentials of living one's life, meeting social, psychological and economic needs, and trying to find meaning in one's existence are about the same.

Most parents and other family members want their children (or siblings) to be happy, to have a fulfilled, rewarding life. We ourselves know how being gay is one way of being happy and leading a rewarding, emotionally fulfilled life. But they may not.

Your job is to help them realize it.

This does not mean you need to force feed information. It does mean that you can be alert for what modern educationists - with their gift for expressing the most commonplace concepts in constantly changing jargon - call "teachable moments," those times when information will seem particularly helpful or enlightening and naturally expressed.

Beyond that, the trick is to assure them in some way that you are open to questions or discussion. Many parents and relatives may never ask anything about your life because they think that would be intrusive or violate your privacy. After all, if you don't talk about it, they may feel you are letting them know that you don't want to talk about it. For all they know, you are uncomfortable about being gay.

And they may not know where to begin or what to ask. So you may have to provide occasional verbal cues or "prompts," teasers that fail to give very complete information and more or less invite questions which then lures the other person into an exchange.

"We went to see a great film last week." Obvious question hanging in the air: What film did you see? Or: "I was at the bar talking with a pilot who had scathing comments about airport security." Obvious information transmitted: there are gay pilots. Obvious questions: what did he say? What is wrong with airport security? Or: "The parade this year had more politicians than ever. I managed to shake hands with a couple." Information transmitted: growing political legitimacy. Possible questions: What parade? What politicians? These may be lame examples, but you get the idea.

If there is a way you can help your family realize that they benefit from your being gay, so much the better. If there is information useful to them that you can pass on - for instance those expert airport security concerns. Or if you met an interesting or important person through being gay: "I was chatting with Judge (fill in the blank) the other day...." Or if you saw something funny in the local gay paper that might entertain them too.

Above all, do not become discouraged. This is a long term project and success is likely to come slowly rather than in a sudden burst of understanding and acceptance. But keep at it unobtrusively but continuously and eventually you will see progress.

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79240899

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More on What Ails the Catholic Church. A very fine piece in Sunday's Washington Post looks at Roman Catholic seminaries in the U.S. Not unexpectedly, a large number of those studying to be priests are gay and they tend to socialize together, which sometimes leads to sexual tensions that are readily apparent. But the topic is not allowed to be openly discussed. The result is a "weird" atmosphere that is driving both straight and gay seminarians to abandon their dreams of becoming priests. Says one straight former priest-to-be about "the atmosphere of suffocating sexual repression" at his seminary:

"You need to create a space where people can be who they are. Being gay is not the problem, but when it's all underground it's no good."

Indeed, clearly it's not.

On German "Marriage". Readers have written to chide me for the recent item in which I wrote, "Meanwhile, Germany (of all places) joins France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden in granting same-sex couples the benefits of matrimony." Wrote one reader:

"Despite the impression you might get from watching the History Channel, the second world war ended a long time ago and fortunately LOTS of things have changed since then. Modern Germany is far from being a perfect place, but general attitudes towards homosexuality in Germany are far ahead of the U.S. and have been for a long time."

Another reader pointed out that Germany's law does not grant the full rights of marriage:

"The German Eingetragene Partnerschaft (registered partnership)--the so-called 'Homo-Ehe' (gay marriage)--in fact does not grant same-sex couples all of the benefits that verheiratete (married) opposite sex couples get. Most notably, they do not get the same benefits as regards taxation--income and inheritance"."

The reason, I"m informed, is that portions of the partnership bill equalizing taxation were rejected by the Bundesrat (the upper house), which is controlled by the CDU/CSU (Christian Democrat Union/Christian Social Union). Moreover, the partnerships, unlike marriage, are not recognized outside of Germany. Hope that helps clarify matters.

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79198067

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Pandering to the Right. Here's another sign of how backward we remain on the subject of legal marriage for gays and lesbians. Just as Canada embarks on a path that's expected to lead to legal same-sex matrimony, Congress members who represent the GOP's anti-gay wing, led this time by Louisiana's David Vitter, are again trying to block funding for Washington, D.C.'s domestic partners law (Congress has the final say so over the district's appropriations). This attempt to mobilize the religious right before November's elections isn't expected to prevail, and openly gay Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz), who previously succeeded in getting the appropriations committee to remove language against the D.C. partners law, is again working to ensure that this latest bit of anti-gay pandering comes to naught.

The sooner this mischief bites the dust, the better for the GOP all round. For what does it profit a party to appeal to the religious right and lose the moderate suburbanites who would like to vote Republican, but fear joining a party that
countenances bigotry?

Paglia Takes Aim. Author Camille Paglia is a free-thinking socially libertarian lesbian and longtime critic of the lesbigay left's rigid orthodoxy (which she terms "gay Stalinism"). In a new FrontPage Magazine piece titled The Gay Inquisition, she responds to attacks against her and other non-leftists by the Village Voice's Richard Goldstein.

Paglia, who sometimes falls into the same kind of overly personalized sneering that her leftwing nemeses specialize in, nevertheless hits the nail on the head when she writes:

"There have been seismic shifts in feminism and gay politics over the past decade. My wing of pro-sex feminism has triumphed, and gay life in general has become more integrated with mainstream America. The fire has gone out of activism, since we are in a period of negotiation rather than confrontationalism in social-policy issues. Communication lines between gay and straight have opened dramatically, except in the most retrograde patches of religious fundamentalism. Hence the small cells still stoking their fury in feminism and gay activism are mostly fanatics--those who are still nursing childhood wounds and who cling to "the movement" as a consoling foster family. They are harmless, except when impressionable young people fall under their spell: their parochial jargon and unresolved resentments stunt the mind."

If only we could put all the leftwing "queer theorists" and all the rightwing family values moralists in a room together and let them luxuriate in their mutual fanaticism while the rest of us get on with our lives.

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79133009

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Can Marriage Ever Be De-politicized? Legislators in Massachusetts this week used a procedural maneuver to kill a proposed statewide ballot initiative to ban gay marriage. The anti-gay Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage had gathered twice the required number of signatures to put the question on the 2004 election ballot, but legislative support was also required. While opponents of the measure needed the votes of more than 75 percent of legislators to defeat it outright, which they lacked, they only needed a simple majority to approve a motion to adjourn without taking it up, which they had. The measure is now effectively dead.

According to the Boston Globe report:

After the vote, the amendment's supporters' frustration boiled over in State House corridors. One woman interrupted a television interview with a legislator to shout ''The people have lost their voice!'' repeatedly, and ''We all know he's gay!'' as she pointed to an activist. She was escorted from the building.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. Congress, anti-gay supporters of a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage are continuing their efforts, which thankfully don't appear to be gaining much traction.

The gay marriage issue is likely to continue as a socio-cultural flashpoint. If any additional states decide to follow Vermont and legalize de facto marriage for same-sex couples, then efforts to ban such unions by amending the U.S. and/or state constitutions will likely pick up steam.

Given this situation, Wendy McElroy has a particularly timely column titled It's Time to Privatize Marriage, on the Fox News website. She even quotes IGF contributor David Boaz, a proponent of getting government out of the marriage-sanctioning business. Unfortunately, in the world we live in the government is deeply embedded in defining what marriage means and who may wed. And the country doesn't appear to be in any kind of a mood to get rid of the myriad legal and financial benefits the state bestows on married couples.

But the tide outside the U.S. is definitely flowing in the direction of granting gays and lesbians the right to marry, whether the term is used or not. A major court decision in Canada is likely to bring about government recognition of same-sex unions north of our border, and there's even some mainstream recognition that this might just strengthen, rather than weaken, the institution, as demonstrated by this supportive piece by Andrew Coyne in the National Post.

Meanwhile, Germany (of all places) joins France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden in granting same-sex couples the benefits of matrimony.

Yes, things could eventually change here as well, but it will take a sustained effort. Nowhere else in the world do the opponents of gay marriage seem as fanatic to their cause as they do on our shores.

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78958271

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The Other Bush Haters. Here's a rabidly anti-gay webpage that contains numerous items intended to document the charge that George W. Bush and the GOP are actively pushing the "gay agenda." It made me feel truly good about how things are going.

You Can't Fool All of the People All of the Time. More evidence that the anti-gay right has reason to be concerned about their loss of influence. Check out this editorial, "Gay Chicken Littles Wrong on Bush," by Chris Crain, editor of the Washington Blade and New York Blade News -- two of the nation's most important gay newspapers. Crain is a Democrat who conlcudes "George W. Bush is no Bill Clinton, but his record so far has been surprisingly neutral and even positive on the gay issues to come before his administration."

Crain makes a persuasive argument, but don't expect most lesbigay political groups to pay attention. Their fundraising is firmly based on scare tactics -- just like the religious right's. In fact, reading fundraising letters from the religious right and the gay left would convince you that American society truly IS on the verge of destruction -- it's just the face of the enemy being blamed that's different.

Another Gay Left Lament. Many of you caught C-SPAN/2's broadcast of the great gay debate between Andrew Sullivan and left-firebrand Richard Goldstein. I agree with the e-mailer who said his favorite moment was when Goldstein demeaned Sullivan as another Roy Cohn (the self-loathing aid to arch-homophobe Joseph McCarthey). Sullivan's immediate and passionate rejoinder, pointing out that he is an openly gay man who argues on behalf of gay marriage in front of religious conservatives, should have put Goldstein to shame (but of course, nothing could do that).

For those who want another example of the gay left's myopia -- although without the personal bile that Goldstein and his cohorts specialize in -- here's an interesting piece from The Independent (U.K.) by Britain's gay left leader, Peter Tatchell, titled "Gay Pride is Now Respectable, and the Worse for It." Tatchell writes:

"We had a beautiful dream, but it's fading fast. In the 30 years since the first Gay Pride march, there has been a massive retreat from the ideals and vision of the early gay liberation pioneers. Most gay people no longer question the values, laws and institutions of mainstream society. They are content to settle for equal rights within the status quo."

Yes, settling for equal rights is just such a bloody shame.

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78846139

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Sullivan versus Goldstein on C-SPAN. This weekend you can catch a tape of the recent debate between IGF contributor Andrew Sullivan and gay left polemicist Richard Goldstein on C-SPAN/2 (see my July 1 posting and Dale Carpenter's column, at right, for more on Goldstein). IGF contributor Norah Vincent and lesbian Marxist Carmen Vasquez also participated in the panel discussion.

The C-SPAN/2 broadcast is scheduled for Saturday July 13th at 3.50pm and Sunday July 14 at 1.35am.

There's an official C-SPAN/Book TV listing which notes that Joan Garry, executive director of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), moderates the event. It also says that Goldstein is the winner of GLAAD's 2001 columnist of the year award. In his book vilifying non-socialist gays, titled "The Attack Queers: Liberal Society and the Gay Right," Goldstein thanks GLAAD for its assistance. While I'm told Garry does a decent job as moderator, can you imagine GLAAD ever giving an award to Sullivan, Vincent, or any other gay moderate, conservative, or libertarian?

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Keep the Pride, Ditch the Parade

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NEAR THE FRONT of the pride parade in Minneapolis this year marched a stern-faced woman dressed in leather-dominatrix regalia leading around by spiked chain and whip a person (sex undetermined) hunched over and disguised as a four-legged beast, probably a horse. Similar displays - which are less about "being yourself" than about simply being seen - assaulted the senses in parades around the country. I ask you, must we continue to put ourselves through this every year?

For the most part, the annual pride parades are a dreary procession of the ordinary: businesses, politicians, gay professionals, and social service organizations wanting money. Where they are not dreary, however, the parades seem calculated to offend the very folk we must win over.

In the 1970s, the parades served the important purpose of giving gays a sense of community and identity necessary to organize in a time when there were no positive images of gays in the mass media, when most states had sodomy laws, and when homosexuality was still officially listed as a mental disorder. In the 1980s, they helped rally us against AIDS. Always characterized by an in-your-face outrageousness, the parades nevertheless had some offsetting value.

But in the age of Will & Grace, when even Republicans are coming around, the parades are an anachronism, perpetuated more out of habit and nostalgia than necessity.

There is an inverse relationship between the degree of weirdness in a city's pride parade and the genuine need for that parade. In the big cities, where the parades are the most outlandish, they serve the least useful purpose. New York, San Francisco, Washington, Houston, and other large American cities are dotted with gay bars, restaurants, and book stores. They have gay bowling leagues and choruses and political groups and civil rights ordinances. A parade designed to foster awareness and community in these cities is an expensive and time-consuming redundancy.

Maybe, you say, the big-city parades benefit people in the surrounding suburbs and small towns. The gay Chicagoan may not need a parade to feel proud but the closeted guy from Peoria needs the Chicago parade to have just one day a year to commune with other gay people. There's surely some benefit to that.

Yes, but at what cost? If our concern is truly to give hope to the gay people who live in the hinterlands, the pride parades may do more harm than good. Simulated sex acts, near-naked men gyrating to music, and bare-breasted women don't play well in Peoria. And like it or not when the local nightly news there turns to gay pride, that's what plays.

That can't be good for the social environment in which gay Peorians must live and work. It hardens anti-gay attitudes, frightening Americans with what they imagine a gay-friendly future would look like. As a result, parents come down harder on any hint of homosexuality in their children. It doesn't matter that these images are unrepresentative of gay life; to Americans who live nowhere near a gay coffee shop, that's what gay means.

And unfortunately it's what gay comes to mean to youths wrestling with their own feelings of same-sex attraction. As a teenager growing up in southern Texas, I saw footage of S&M leather fetishists in the San Francisco parade. If that's gay, I thought, I must not be gay.

Gay youth around the country are forced into the closet by these parades, either because of the backlash they suffer in their communities or because of their own alienation from the public image of gayness thus created.

So there is a large hidden human cost to these displays. It's awfully selfish for us in big cities to have this fabulous annual party at their expense.

What's the alternative? We'll never get the media to stop focusing on the sensational. That's not because the media are uniformly homophobic; it's because they're profit-driven, profits are determined by audience size, and audiences prefer outrageous to dreary. It doesn't matter how many contingents of gay-suburbanite couples proudly brandish their joint mortgage statements, the TV stations will still feature the square-dancing drag queens.

It's also not an option to exclude weirdness from the parades. First of all, we could never agree on what's weird. Second, even if we could, people would scream censorship. Third, parade organizers tend to be so drenched in the easy rhetoric of inclusion and diversity they could never be trusted to make sensible judgments about such things.

The answer is to end the parades, at least in the big cities, where the weirdness of them is at a maximum and the need for them is at a minimum.

We should replace them with park festivals featuring civil rights and other groups with booths, food, and live concerts. That would make the annual pride celebrations fun and informative while minimizing the incentive for counterproductive media spectacles. Something like this already happens in most cities at the end of the parade. Let's skip the parade and go straight to the festival.

The parades themselves could justifiably go on in medium- and small-sized cities where they now flourish. Parades in these places tend to reflect the values and tastes of local communities, which can actually help the gay people who live there.

And no, this is not a proposal to "hide" the marginalized. Hey, if you want to walk around dressed as a farm animal, go for it.

But don't ask us to have a parade for you.

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The Normalization of Gay Lib

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Originally appeared July 10, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

On July 6, the day of England's annual Gay Pride parade, British activist Peter Tatchell wrote a column for the left-leaning London Independent deploring changes in the gay movement over the last 30 years.

"We had a beautiful dream," he wrote. "Our demand was liberation. We wanted to change society, not conform to it. Our radical, idealistic vision involved creating a new sexual democracy, without homophobia and misogyny. Erotic shame and guilt would be banished, together with compulsory monogamy, gender roles and the nuclear family."

Tatchell went on to criticize gay organizations that focus on issues such as gay marriage which reflect traditional heterosexual goals, rather than "more contentious issues such as ... consensual sex between underage partners, the censorship of sexual imagery, the timidity of sex education lessons, and the criminalization of sex workers and sadomasochistic relationships."

Tatchell articulates both the nostalgia and the bafflement frequently expressed in the U.S. as well as England by old-timers on the gay left. At some point, the gay movement seemed to slip out from under them and they are not quite sure what happened, why it happened or who to blame.

But Tatchell underestimates both the success of the gay movement and the extent to which society has changed. To a great degree gays and lesbians have achieved the liberation that Tatchell and his colleagues sought from the repression imposed by government and public opinion.

Increasing numbers of gays fully accept themselves and live their lives openly and happily, accepted by family and friends, their sexuality accorded respect and their relationships treated with dignity. If that is not a revolution, then Tatchell is forgetting what a revolution is.

We have even achieved some of the sexual liberation Tatchell sought. Whatever Tatchell's "sexual democracy" means - and majority rule over people's sex lives seems like a dangerous idea - we have moved toward a more libertarian sexual individualism in which people can determine their own sexual and romantic lives, independent of what others think. The right conceptual model here is free market individualism not some governmental "sexual democracy."

Second, Tatchell and other early leaders on the left deceived themselves in assuming that early participants in gay liberation - the "we" he keeps referring to - all supported some sort of social and sexual radicalism. A substantial number of leaders and "activists" no doubt did since people with the most zeal about their views tend to push themselves forward most vigorously.

But the majority of gays even then were all over the political map. The thousands of gays and lesbians who marched in the earliest Gay Pride parades were hardly affirming any left-wing or radical agenda. They were simply making themselves visible, affirming their existence and moral legitimacy.

Films of early gay pride rallies show thousands of well-scrubbed, wholesome-looking gays and lesbians in T-shirts and jeans, looking slightly bored as they are harangued from the stage about the oppression of transvestites, prostitutes, gender roles, etc., and you know they're sitting there thinking, "When does the band get to play?" and "I wonder if that guy over there wants to hook up later."

Third, Tatchell seems to assume that any social movement such as ours should never depart from its original agenda (such as he imagines it). This is the nerve of the current liberationist position and it is repeated endlessly. Unfortunately, Tatchell never offers any argument for it.

But any movement that wants to stay vital and grow has to reflect the goals of its constituents and supporters. And if the primary slogan of gay lib was "come out, wherever you are," gays did come out in large numbers, bringing their own needs, beliefs and personal goals with them.

And it turned out that what most gay and lesbians wanted was "a normal life" - a stable, comfortable home, a primary relationship with someone they loved, a degree of freedom to explore their sexuality, and opportunities to live and socialize free of stigma and prejudice. If they felt any concern about prostitutes, transsexuals, sadomasochism, etc., it was hardly a priority.

Fourth, the good news for Tatchell is that he fails to consider how the open participation of gays in our social institutions will gradually change those institutions. If, as leftists sometimes argue, there is an inherent gay sensibility, they should have faith that it will have an effect wherever it is present. Dennis Altman caught this in his book title "The Homosexualization of America."

But more than that, the presence and legitimacy in our social institutions of people with a slightly different way of engaging with the world will result - is already resulting - in the relaxation of social strictures and open those institutions to other possibilities as well. In a free market of social behavior, once a legal monopoly is broken, more options will offer themselves for consideration.

This is, of course, an unintended effect, but it is a powerful effect nevertheless, and impossible to prevent because it has no direct cause. So Tatchell may obtain more of his goals than he expects, but in modified form and by means he never anticipated.

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78713973

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Republican Conspiracies Everywhere! I usually don't like to waste ink, or bytes, on gay lefty columnist Michelangelo Signorile, one of the more hysterical voices among the "queer" Bush haters. But his latest ranting in the New York Press is so emblematic of the paranoia that passes as argument among his crowd that it deserves comment.

In a piece titled "Fundie Eruptions," Signorile first turns to the United Nations, where he takes note of a Washington Post story suggesting that Islamic governments and conservative Christians were on the same side in opposing "progressive" family policy issues. Both, for instance, are against gay inclusion in U.N. family policy documents, and oppose abortion as part of U.N.-funded family planning programs. From this account, Signorile feels vindicated in re-affirming his view that Christian conservatives are "the real American Taliban," as Christian and Islamic fundamentalists are "actually down on the killing fields of the culture wars together, battling side by side against the rest of the world."

Since there's really no difference between Pat Robertson and Osama bin Ladin, Signorile further deduces that George W. Bush, having appointed abortion opponents to U.N. delegations, is just as bad as the leaders of the terror regimes of the Middle East. Or, as Signorile phrases it:

"The thought that a president who asserted that he"d liberated the women of Afghanistan -- and used his wife to herald such claims -- is secretly working to undermine women on the rest of the planet is beyond hypocritical."

Yes, the president who "asserted" he had something to do with overthrowing a regime that made women invisible chattel would also oppose making U.S. taxpayers fund abortions through the U.N. shows, I guess, that he's just as bad as Saddam Hussein

Wait, it gets better. Signorile then offers:

"it seemed almost too convenient that just a few days after the revelation about the UN scheme, our attorney general, John Ashcroft, came under attack from some Christian conservatives for not being conservative enough anymore -- specifically because he allowed a deputy to speak at a Dept. of Justice-sponsored gay pride event. How lucky can you get? Just when your administration is exposed as being profoundly intolerant for empowering groups that are working with our most dreaded enemies -- including Iraq and Iran -- your very own Mr. Intolerance is attacked for, well, not being intolerant enough, shifting the debate entirely. Lucky indeed -- unless, perhaps, you helped promote the latter story yourself so that you might look more moderate."

Yes, the religious right's attacks on the Bush administration's gay overtures are being planned in the basement of the White House, as a ploy to make Bush appear "moderate" while he goes about terrorizing the women of the world with his buds Osama and Saddam. Those nefarious Republicans"what will they think of next?

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78571193

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Did They Make Michael Ovitz an Offer He Couldn't Refuse? First, former Hollywood honcho Michael Ovitz, in a Vanity Fair interview, accuses a tinsel town "gay mafia" of undermining his reign as superagent and motion picture powerhouse. Next, he apologizes for statements that were "inappropriate."

Of course, Ovitz didn't mean there is a real gay "mafia"; he meant a circle of gay insiders including his nemesis, David Geffen. Still, there's nothing like a Hollywood Homosexual Hullabaloo to liven up the summer doldrums.


Proud Mary. The right-wing Christian newswire, CNS News Service, reports that while answering questions after a recent speech, the vice-presidential spouse, Lynn Cheney, "tried to dodge a question from the audience that referenced her daughter, Mary, who is rumored to be homosexual." Actually, Mary is quite out, lives openly with her partner, worked at Coors as their corporate liaison to the gay community, and is now helping the Republican Unity Coalition reach out to gays and lesbians.

Back to the CNS report:

"With an openly gay daughter, why aren't you and the vice president more supportive of gay and lesbian civil rights that could ease her burden?" one audience member asked. "If you met my daughter Mary, you wouldn't think of her as a burdened young woman," Cheney first offered. "She is a wonderful young woman who is just about to finish business school. We are very proud of our entire family." When pressed about the need for getting involved in "the issue of gay and lesbian rights," Cheney cited her husband's comments during the 2000 vice presidential debate with Democratic candidate Joseph Lieberman. "I think that Dick had exactly the right answer when he was asked about this," she said. "He really said that people in our society should have the right to live their lives as they choose."

An affirmation of tolerance, but not quite an endorsement of full equality before the law. On the other hand, I"m glad she told the activist-questioner that not all gays and lesbians go through life seeing themselves as perpetual victims.

Further Fuming by Fundies. Also from the always partial CNS News Service this week was an item headed "Bush's Choice for CDC Head Not Popular with Conservatives" It seems Dr. James Dobson, head of the anti-gay Focus on the Family, is "baffled" by President Bush's decision to name Dr. Julie Gerberding as the new head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to Dobson:

"There is nothing in the record to indicate her opposition to 'safe-sex' ideology. She has no apparent concern about the ineffectiveness of condom usage, nor any stated disagreement with the positions of the homosexual activist movement, or with the provision of free needles to drug users. -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is already the world's largest promoter of homosexuality and 'safe-sex' programs, and now the president has appointed someone whose positions indicate that the organization will continue dishing out more of the same."

Sounds like another first-class appointment by President Bush.

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