Seen that TV commercial showing James Dean as the epitome of cool —cool hair, cool chin, cool car? Perhaps they could have gone a step further and pointed out that just as every cool TV show this year seems to have a cool gay character in it, the person they're telling you was practically the originator of cool was also gay.
Although they're beginning to spread the news now, only one columnist in The New York Times ( 1/20 ) , Frank Rich, actually caught the smear that Attorney General wanabe John Ashcroft said about Ambassador James Hormel. Said Ashcroft of the openly gay Hormel, "He had recruited me when I was a student in college to go to the University of Chicago Law School." As Rich and Hormel ( who was not asked to testify before Congress ) point out, the Christian right tend to use the word "recruit" to mean to seduce a formerly straight young person into the gay lifestyle. Even if this is a Freudian slip, it is still, says reporter Rich, "creepy." Hormel, for his part, recalls no conversations with Ashcroft, ever.
The Chicago Tribune ( 1/15 ) has an obituary of the British philosopher, Elisabeth Anscombe, 81. Considered one of the greatest thinkers of her generation, she was even more famous for championing Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and became one of his literary executors. In a series of papers she rejected Christian morality while remaining a fervent Roman Catholic and opposing homosexuality. Ironically, Witgenstein was a closeted, extremely troubled homosexual.
Sir Elton John, in The New York Times ( 1/24 ) , is widening his repertoire: he is showing a collection of 20th century photographs in the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. He credits two people for his interest in photography: his former lover ( from Atlanta ) who was the catalyst for getting him sober, and the murdered gay fashion designer, Versace, who told him to go out and look at things now that he could see them. With his money he went out, and looked, and bought.
The review of the gay-themed book The Abomination ( Paul Golding ) in The New York Times Book Review ( 1/7 ) has at least one thing going for it: the main character ... "doesn't forgive his oppressors, doesn't rise above his suffering, doesn't become the 'better person' that Oprah's Book Club readers would demand." Thank you, Jesus. Otherwise I'd be leery of the novel because it seems to conflate pederasty and homosexuality.
Roxana Robinson, in an essay "The Big Chill" in the same New York Times Book Review criticizes the coolness, lack of feeling, and lack of heart that has settled over most of literature today. We didn't start this way: "For centuries, our heroes had powerful emotional responses: Achilles, that most macho of men, wept for three days after the death of Patroclus." ( His companion-in-arms, probably in more ways than one. ) Perhaps we need more gay literature to turn the culture around. After all, if the critics aren't saying we're too camp, they're saying we're too emotional.
The LogCabingians are a tish worried over Dubya's first week. Yeah, there's Mary Cheney and yeah, she came to the inauguration with her ( unnamed ) companion, but not much else. This all according to The New York Times ( 1/26 ) . At a so-called Republican Unity Coalition breakfast a number of gay Republicans were present but not Ms. Cheney, nor any top Bush officials. Meanwhile other folks have testified that John Ashcroft asked them of their sexual orientation while interviewing them for jobs.
Now a little something that sounds like the National Enquirer but is actually The New York Times ( 1/22 ) . The headline ought to be "I woke up GAY years later!" The Rev. James Simmons, in his own words a "gay and celibate man" of a mostly gay church in Dallas, turns out to have been Barre Cox ( a much gayer name, I think ) , a straight married preacher from San Antonio. Cox disappeared in 1984 and the case was given much publicity. Cox/Simmons said he was beaten and had amnesia. He's spoken with his former wife and his daughter. Some in the area are skeptical, but C/S says "If I made up this story, why would I come back to Texas?" Well, Reverend, maybe because it's a little safer with Shrub gone?