THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

The Village Voice (7/13) titters a bit about the new Scottish Boy Band, Franz Ferdinand, whose new single 'Michael' is out and out homoerotic: 'Beautiful boys on a beautiful dance floor / Michael you're dancing like a beautiful dance whore.' Franz Ferdinand's four members are straight but, as the old saying goes, 'not crazy.' A beautiful person, male or female, is beautiful.

Speaking of boys on a dance floor, The NY Times (7/14) has a major article on same-sex ballroom dancing entitled 'In the Ballroom, A Redefinition of 'Couple''. All sorts of lesbians, gay guys and perhaps other sexually varied folks have started flocking to salsa and other kinds of dance classes in NY City. Being New Yorkers, they are pushing it to the next level: protesting one man/one woman restrictions imposed on competitions by the United States Amateur Ballroom Dancers Association. The protestors have had some success—lower level college-sponsored events have begun allowing same-sex couples. Speaking as one who has competed at straight dance events, I can say objections to same-sex couples almost never come from instructors. At the social dances that are part of all contests, it is very common to see same-sex couples of teachers together because (1) they're showing they know both parts and (2) they're having fun. More often than not they're straight.

Barbara Ehrenreich, columnist at The NY Times (7/11), writes re gay marriage: 'How the married gays will go about wrecking heterosexual marriages is not entirely clear: by moving in next door, inviting themselves over and doing a devastating critique of the interior decorating?' Yoko Ono in the Chicago Sun-Times (7/9) says on the same subject 'I think it's very nice that in an age when love is so scarce that people are willing to gamble on getting married.' (She recently re-wrote an old song of hers 'Every Man Has A Woman Who Loves Him' changing 'Woman' to 'Man'.)

From the 'Crying-Out-For-A-Gay-Angle' file: The NY Times (7/3) wrote of the Chinese problem of 'bare branches,' young men in China who, because of abortion of females, out-number the women in their age group and will never marry. The article worries they may cause violent eruptions in the body politic. But what if, what if, homosexuality was officially allowed and even approved of? Might not this partly defuse the situation?