Bush homophobic?

[NatalieSheff]

this is a long read, but please do read how stupid this man can be:(pinched from guardian earlier this month)

 

'We have to protect people'

 

President Bush wants 'pro-homosexual' drama banned. Gary Taylor meets the politician in charge of making it happen

 

Thursday December 9, 2004

The Guardian

 

 

On the black list... A Chorus Line (pictured: Daniel Crossley and Jason Durr in the 2003 Sheffield Crucible production). Photo: Tristram Kenton

 

What should we do with US classics like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or The Color Purple? "Dig a hole," Gerald Allen recommends, "and dump them in it." Don't laugh. Gerald Allen's book-burying opinions are not a joke.

 

Earlier this week, Allen got a call from Washington. He will be meeting with President Bush on Monday. I asked him if this was his first invitation to the White House. "Oh no," he laughs. "It's my fifth meeting with Mr Bush."

 

Bush is interested in Allen's opinions because Allen is an elected Republican representative in the Alabama state legislature. He is Bush's base. Last week, Bush's base introduced a bill that would ban the use of state funds to purchase any books or other materials that "promote homosexuality". Allen does not want taxpayers' money to support "positive depictions of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle". That's why Tennessee Williams and Alice Walker have got to go.

 

I ask Allen what prompted this bill. Was one of his children exposed to something in school that he considered inappropriate? Did he see some flamingly gay book displayed prominently at the public library?

 

No, nothing like that. "It was election day," he explains. Last month, "14 states passed referendums defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman". Exit polls asked people what they considered the most important issue, and "moral values in this country" were "the top of the list".

 

"Traditional family values are under attack," Allen informs me. They've been under attack "for the last 40 years". The enemy, this time, is not al-Qaida. The axis of evil is "Hollywood, the music industry". We have an obligation to "save society from moral destruction". We have to prevent liberal libarians and trendy teachers from "re-engineering society's fabric in the minds of our children". We have to "protect Alabamians".

 

I ask him, again, for specific examples. Although heterosexuals are apparently an endangered species in Alabama, and although Allen is a local politician who lives a couple miles from my house, he can't produce any local examples. "Go on the internet," he recommends. "Some time when you've got a week to spare," he jokes, "just go on the internet. You'll see."

 

Actually, I go on the internet every day. But I'm obviously searching for different things. For Allen, the web is just the largest repository in history of urban myths. The internet is even better than the Bible when it comes to spreading unverifiable, unrefutable stories. And urban myths are political realities. Remember, it was an urban myth (an invented court case about a sex education teacher gang-raped by her own students who, when she protested, laughed and said: "But we're just doing what you taught us!") that all but killed sex education in America.

 

Since Allen couldn't give me a single example of the homosexual equivalent of 9/11, I gave him some. This autumn the University of Alabama theatre department put on an energetic revival of A Chorus Line, which includes, besides "tits and ass", a prominent gay solo number. Would Allen's bill prevent university students from performing A Chorus Line? It isn't that he's against the theatre, Allen explains. "But why can't you do something else?" (They have done other things, of course. But I didn't think it would be a good idea to mention their sold-out productions of Angels in America and The Rocky Horror Show.)

 

Cutting off funds to theatre departments that put on A Chorus Line or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof may look like censorship, and smell like censorship, but "it's not censorship", Allen hastens to explain. "For instance, there's a reason for stop lights. You're driving a vehicle, you see that stop light, and I hope you stop." Who can argue with something as reasonable as stop lights? Of course, if you're gay, this particular traffic light never changes to green.

 

It would not be the first time Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ran into censorship. As Nicholas de Jongh documents in his amusingly appalling history of government regulation of the British theatre, the British establishment was no more enthusiastic, half a century ago, than Alabama's Allen. "Once again Mr Williams vomits up the recurring theme of his not too subconscious," the Lord Chamberlain's Chief Examiner wrote in 1955. In the end, it was first performed in London at the New Watergate Club, for "members only", thereby slipping through a loophole in the censorship laws.

 

But more than one gay playwright is at a stake here. Allen claims he is acting to "encourage and protect our culture". Does "our culture" include Shakespeare? I ask Allen if he would insist that copies of Shakespeare's sonnets be removed from all public libraries. I point out to him that Romeo and Juliet was originally performed by an all-male cast, and that in Shakespeare's lifetime actors and audiences at the public theatres were all accused of being "sodomites". When Romeo wished he "was a glove upon that hand", the cheek that he fantasised about kissing was a male cheek. Next March the Alabama Shakespeare festival will be performing a new production of As You Like It, and its famous scene of a man wooing another man. The Alabama Shakespeare Festival is also the State Theatre of Alabama. Would Allen's bill cut off state funding for Shakespeare?

 

"Well," he begins, after a pause, "the current draft of the bill does not address how that is going to be handled. I expect details like that to be worked out at the committee stage. Literature like Shakespeare and Hammet [sic] could be left alone." Could be. Not "would be". In any case, he says, "you could tone it down". That way, if you're not paying real close attention, even a college graduate like Allen himself "could easily miss" what was going on, the "subtle" innuendoes and all.

 

So he regards his gay book ban as a work in progress. His legislation is "a single spoke in the wheel, it doesn't resolve all the issues". This is just the beginning. "To turn a big ship around it takes a lot of time."

 

But make no mistake, the ship is turning. You can see that on the face of Cornelius Carter, a professor of dance at Alabama and a prize-winning choreographer who, not long ago, was named university teacher of the year for the entire US. Carter is black. He is also gay, and tired of fighting these battles. "I don't know," he says, "if I belong here any more."

 

Forty years ago, the American defenders of "our culture" and "traditional values" were opposing racial integration. Now, no politician would dare attack Cornelius Carter for being black. But it's perfectly acceptable to discriminate against people for what they do in bed.

 

"Dig a hole," Gerald Allen recommends, "and dump them in it."

 

Of course, Allen was talking about books. He was just talking about books. He never said anything about pink triangles.

[evildrneil]

Given Bush's religious convictions and politics (I could be nasty here and say lack of IQ too but I'll play nice!) I would actually be more surprised if he wasn't homophobic than if he was!

[nick2]

He is just picking on the only group of people you can still legally pick on in America.

 

I can't understand how gay people are contributing to the family problems America has but they/we have always been a convenient minority to blame, it's not the first time and it won't be the last.

[NatalieSheff]

"promote homosexuality" i can't get my head round that. you either are or you arent, how can you "promote" it? its not a concert or new album:loopy:

[Ned Ludd]

Originally posted by evildrneil

Given Bush's religious convictions and politics...... I would actually be more surprised if he wasn't homophobic than if he was!

I think we should try and understand George on this. He comes from Texas where homosexuality is competely unknown, where ALL its inhabitants are descended from 100% red blooded, heterosexual cowboys (they killed all the Indians). The discovery that some men have sexual preferences other than for women and heifers must have been a considerable shock, so you imagine why he's keen not to have homosexuality shoved down his throat.

[NatalieSheff]

you'd be surprised how many "straight" men arent mmm

[evildrneil]

Especially the ones who most decry homosexuality and try the most to prove their 'straightness'!!!!

[NatalieSheff]

seen it and the inevitable progression. why cant people just be happy with their bonking antics?

[Greenback]

Originally posted by Ned Ludd

I think we should try and understand George on this. He comes from Texas where homosexuality is competely unknown, where ALL its inhabitants are descended from 100% red blooded, heterosexual cowboys (they killed all the Indians). The discovery that some men have sexual preferences other than for women and heifers must have been a considerable shock, so you imagine why he's keen not to have homosexuality shoved down his throat.

 

 

Tsk, all those cowboys used to work off their frustrations by having gunfights with each other (at least, on the telly they did). Man to man, with steely eyes and cocked guns, they'd quickly move their hands to their trousers and draw come sunset...

[Phanerothyme]

Maybe we can look forward to American Asylum Seekers? Judging by the sheer amount of 'gay talent' in the USA, this is not going to go down well. Interesting to see how Hollywood splits on this, nothing like a McCarthy style manhunt to put the wind up Beverly Hills.

 

The GOP are seeking to make some irrevocable (nearly) changes to the USA whilst they have the chance. The Fundamentalist Christian Right, which is a cynical, diabolical exercise in parting people from their money in return for feeding them lies, drives the GOP, and this is quite transparent in Bush's presidency.

 

Bush owes them big time, and now they are calling in their debts.

 

The Great Frank - Thing Fish - "The Torchum never stops"

Only the boring and bland shall survive!

Only the lamest of lameness will thrive!"

Take it or leave it, you won't be alive,

If you are overtly CREATIVE!

 

Fairies and faggots and queers are

'CREATIVE'

All the best music on Broadway is

'NATIVE'

 

Who will step forward

And end all this trouble?

For beige-blandish citizens,

Clutching the rubble

Of vanishing dreams

Of wimpish amusement,

Replaced by a rash

Of 'CREATIVE' confusement!

Soon, my brave Zombies,

You'll make your return!

Broadway will glow!

Broadway will burn!

(Along with the remnants of

EVERYTHING NEW)

My HOLY DISEASE will do

Wonders for you!

Those lovely producers

Who paid for you 'then'

Will do it again, and again, and again!

...