Straight washing after Bondage
Daniel Craig retired from the James Bond role with the latest Bond-franchise movie, “A Time To Die.” So, what better way to break the bondage of Bond-play than to be in Luca Guadagnino’s new movie, “Queer.” Guadagnino is best known for directing “Call Me By Your Name,” which made a heartthrob of Timothee Chalamet and Arnie Hammer, briefly, a hot daddy. Craig has portrayed gay roles before. Earlier in his career, he played the rough trade love interest of British artist Francis Bacon in “Love is the Devil.” “Queer” premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Craig plays a drug-addicted gay American who falls for a younger man, played by Drew Starkey, in 1940s Mexico. The movie has intimate love scenes between the two men, with Craig performing his own “stunts.” The movie is based on a 1950 book by homophile, “Beat” author William Burroughs. Director Guadagnino hopes viewers will focus on story and characterization rather than steamy sex scenes. That could happen.
DEI DIES
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as a business strategy is experiencing a quick death. Under pressure from MAGA politicians and consumers, DEI has been altered and ended by many state and local governments and educational institutions. It is under attack in federal departments. The most famous retreat of DEI in marketing has been Target Stores changing product mix and display at stores during the annual Pride celebrations. Don’t forget Anheuser-Busch’s climb down after the “brewhaha” over transgender-influencer Dylan Mulvaney popping a Bud-Light. Other high-profile companies altering or ending DEI efforts are Molson Coors, Tractor Supply, Harley Davidson, Lowe’s, and Jack Daniels. Participation in any activity other than brand sales is curtailed and is having an impact on the bottom dollar of Pride celebrations. Many companies are withdrawing participation from the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. Also ending are “diversity supplier” quotas, charitable giving criteria, and “outreach” efforts in employee recruitment and training.
Census sticks its nose in
The U.S. Census Bureau is testing questions about sexual orientation and gender identity on the American Community Survey. The ACS is a precursor and important tool in developing the decennial census, ordered by the U.S. Constitution. It is sent to 295,000 households every year and the results are used to analyze household data and allocate federal funding. The 2022 survey identified 1.3 million same-sex couple households, 57 percent of which were “married couples.” The research will report how LGBT households compare to non-LGBT households on things like housing characteristics, housing costs, and housing quality, among others. This effort is part of the current president’s policy directive to federal agencies, which is to find ways to better gauge and serve the LGBT community.
Why O, Who O, Why O, Ohio?
What must it do to a person’s ego, after being the only applicant for a vacant seat on the town council and still being denied the position. Sixteen years ago, David Nation moved to Waynesville, Ohio with his now-husband. He has been very involved in community service ever since. He applied for the vacancy and interviewed long before the deadline. The town mayor told him he was very qualified for the position. At the meeting where he should have been sworn in the council chair announced three other people were to be interviewed. The council chair explained his objection to Nation’s slam-dunk appointment was due to his resume focus on “diversity and inclusion” and him being a founding member of the town’s LGBT-focused Rainbow Alliance. At the meeting announcing the appointment of the other candidate, the audience comments unanimously denounced the decision, calling it a “shady deal” and anti-gay discrimination. The citizens have launched a petition to “recall” the appointment. Discrimination against gay people doesn’t die; it just changes the language it uses.
A Waterloo, Iowa gay bar, who knew
Around the U.S., bars catering to gay or lesbian customers are closing or changing to accommodate a “queer” (some call them odd-straight-people) clientele. But the concept is roaring back in Waterloo, Iowa. “The Rail Station” opened in downtown Waterloo during the June Pride Celebration. The club owner, a gay man, owns several other restaurants in the area. He says he came out later in life and wants to provide a place where gays and lesbians can socialize without fear. There was a bar, “The Kings and Queens Clubm,” but it closed three years ago leaving its regulars without a watering hole. Jessi Jade-Michaels, who was a regular and a drag performer at the old club, told the local newspaper, “For a lot of people within the LGBT community, they can’t walk into (other bars) holding another guy’s hand or another girl’s hand without the whole bar looking. This is the spot where they can.” The club owner says, “This is a decision of the heart, not the head.” He’s not sure there are enough customers to pay the way without the “odd straight people,” but his other businesses are “The Rail Station” backstop.
Prop 8 started it all, on the chopping block
California’s Prop 8 put the “One Man, One Woman” definition of marriage into California’s State Constitution in 2008, which started the backlash that led to the U. S. Supreme Court declaring marriage equality in 2012. The language, the same as Utah’s Amendment 3, has remained in the state’s charter even though it was meaningless. A new proposal, Proposition 3, is on the ballot for the Fall 2024 election to eliminate the superfluous language and enshrine marriage equality in the constitution. It is supported by the governor, the California Democratic Party, Equality California, the Human Rights Campaign, and the American Civil Liberties Union. It is opposed by the California Family Council and the American Council of Evangelicals on “religious” grounds. No word from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about any ghost funding of the opposition, as it did to get Prop 8 passed way back when.
Some LGBTQ books back in Florida schools
The authors of a sweet book about two male penguins hatching then raising a penguin chick, “And Tango Makes Three,” led a legal settlement resulting in the reinstatement of 36 LGBTQ-themed books in a Florida school district. A court settlement ordered this book to be returned to school libraries to which K to 6th graders have access. Other books of the 36 were ordered returned with some age-appropriate restrictions. The books were removed in 2022 in reaction to complaints filed based on the set of Florida laws critics call “Don’t Say Gay.” This bill, Florida HB 1069, ordered the removal of books containing sexual themes as well as other ideological “no-nos.” The judge found nothing in “And Tango Makes Three” to be obscene as it detailed the egg hatching and nurturing of the chick in New York City’s Central Park Zoo. This settlement does not challenge the provisions in HB 1069, and only applies to Nassau County School District. A separate lawsuit seeking to overturn the law is still pending.
Sport trash talk
A 2014 study by the “Neutral Zone,” a youth organization, reports that the people who suffer most by gay or lesbian trash talk in school sports are straight and white males. Gay and lesbian teens aren’t unaffected, but they tend to expect it and already have processed it. The study was analyzed in the “Journal of Sport and Social Issues.” The analysis says the talk is “policing of sexual and gender norms, specifically masculinity, through the use of anti-LGBTQ + language.” No surprise that all who have it directed at them suffer lowered self-esteem. Black and Hispanic teens report a high frequency of having such talk used against them by peers. This group, as well from experience, expected the “slurs” and can process the experience better than straight white males. Makes one’s heart hurt for straight white male teens. Or is it your balls ache?
