Is it possible to do well by doing good? The Reader ( 7/6 ) has a lead story of a gay man, Brad Suster, who helps preserve old historic buildings, often by buying them for commercial use. Well and good, but even better is his successful notion of hiring homeless people to house sit the structures ( to preserve them from drug dealers, etc. ) until they can be re-habbed.
The New York Times ( 7/6 ) reviews the movie Lost and Delirious about lesbian love in a girls' school. Their reviewer is in fine sarcastic fettle—commenting on one girl spying on two others, he says " ... the lovers think she's sleeping; if only they realized that it would be tough not to be awakened by the angelic choir that fills the soundtrack during their lovemaking." The review says everything about the film is "go" except for the sappy script.
The Reader, in News of the Weird ( 7/6 ) reports that Jusstice James Canfield of New Yorks' Supreme Court is notorious for marrying those he has just convicted, such as a child molester to the girlfriend whose daughter was his target. The judge's justification? He says it reduces the likelihood of homosexual sex in prison.
The New York Times ( 6/16 ) says U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens based his dissent in the case saying the Boy Scouts could exclude gays on an article written by gay Asian-American law professor Kenji Yoshino. Yoshino, who teaches at Yale, says in various writings that are becoming more and more influential, that the traditional civil-rights arguments based on race are inappropriate for gays.
The Washington Post ( 7/5 ) reports on a matter that some may find akin to ascertaining how many angels can dance on the head of a pin—it involves a split in a 300-year-old Episcopal parish where the vestry ( governing body of a local church ) has hired a priest, the Rev. Samuel L. Edwards, whom the acting bishop, the Rt. Rev. Jane Holmes Dixson, regards as illegal. Edwards is the former head of an anti-gay group of Episcopal clergy. The fuss may be more important than apparent because the Episcopal faith has influence out of keeping with its small numbers—many members of Congress are Episcopalian.
The Atlanta Journal ( 7/5 ) reports on a real conundrum for gay voters there. Openly gay Cathy Woolard, who appeared in gay pride festivities, is running for City Council President but she is running with an agenda to make all bars close at 2 a.m. A local drag queen, Raven, has attacked Wollard and her position, saying it falls too harshly on gays and gay bars.
The National Education Association has dropped consideration of a resolution supporting gay staff members and students, according to the St. Louis Post dispatch ( 7/5 ) . Instead the union will form a task force to look further at the issue.
In a major interview with French movie director Francis Veber, the Washington Post ( 7/5 ) quotes the maker of La Cage Aux Folles and now The Closet as saying that comedy needs to be cruel. "It's very hard not to be cruel." but in this movie ( The Closet ) "I didn't want to make a gay movie, I wanted to make a film about changing identity and the way it's perceived. I didn't want to parody gays." He says he liked the idea of doing an anti-Cage aux Folles where the person never tries to change his identity but instead the perception of others change. Closet involves a man forced to pretend he's gay to keep his job, but the character only announces the gayness, he does not act on it.
My apologies in last week's column where I quoted a Tribune columnist but did not name her. She is Georgie Anne Geyer who, although conservative, was able to defend gay people from fundamentalist attacks in the third world.