Dan Savage

The Not-So-Gay Divorceé

VIII. Adjustment.

The question of a divorceé has long plagued Christian supremacists who denounce marriage equality and gay rights, but, you know, really? Not only has Kim Davis already licensed transgender man and his pansexual wife, and most likely also issued plenty of marriage licenses to divorceés, but it also turns out that Ms. Davis is herself a serial adulterer.

On this point, Travis Gettys of Raw Story considers an appearance by Dan Savage on msnbc; the author, advice columnist, and editor of The Stranger, Mr. Savage spared no punches:

“I think Kim Davis is waiting to cash in,” Savage told MSNBC. “I predicted from the beginning that she would defy all the court orders, defy the Supreme Court, she would ultimately be held in contempt of court, lose her job, perhaps go to prison for a short amount of time. And then she will have written for her, ghost written books. She will go on the right-wing lecture circuit and she’ll never have to do an honest day’s work ever again in her life.”

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, in a mugshot, 3 September 2015, after being held in contempt of court by U.S. District Judge David Bunning, after she refused to comply with the law and issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples.“This is about someone hypocritically cashing in, and she is a hypocrite,” he added.

Savage referred to the defiant clerk’s statement complaining that courts were asking her to “violate a central teaching of Scripture and of Jesus Himself regarding marriage” — which the columnist dismissed as ridiculous.

“This is a woman who’s been divorced three times and married four times,” he said, reading from the US News & World Report article that pointed out Davis “gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband, (and) they were fathered by her third husband but adopted by her second husband.”

“She’s now onto her fourth husband,” Savage said. “Jesus Christ himself in scripture condemned divorce, called it adultery and forbids it. Jesus Christ himself in scripture says not one word about same-sex marriage.”

Savage said the U.S. Supreme Court had already decided the issue of same-sex marriage, and he said Davis clearly should have followed the law all along.

“She’s not being asked to perform a sacrament, she is tasked with ascertaining that the people in front of her, the couple in front of her, have a legal right to get married and to provide them with that license,” he said. “She is not a minister. She actually thinks she works for God there in the county courthouse, when she actually works for Caesar — and someone needs to acquaint her with that fact.”

Or we might attend Mr. Savage himself, who recently blogged, among other notes:

I would say I can’t wait for a Muslim county clerk in, say, Dearborn, Michigan (which has a huge Muslim community), to refuse to issue a marriage license to a Christian couple on the grounds that the this kafir couple hasn’t been paying jizya… but that’s not going to happen. Religious minorities in this country intuitively understand that to empower religious bigots like Davis is to paint bullseyes on their own backs. So the Jesus-freak goons at the Liberty Counsel work to frame discrimination as a “religious freedom” because they’re confident that American Christians will be the ones doing the discriminating, not suffering from it.

This is an important point. Something about functional reality goes here.

(more…)

A Note on ‘Curing’ Heterosexuality (Puppy Power Mystery Mix)

Puppy play. (Original photograph by The Stranger.)

There is a long, hard joke in there somewhere involving basic Freudian propositions of differentiation between polymorphous equivalence in pleasure seeking and genital focus. And with a setup like, that, well, right. But it did come about that in the wake of an embarrassing trial and subsequent, obvious verdict against a conversion therapy outfit called Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH), a friend mused on the thought of whether or not humanity might achieve a cure for heterosexuality.

The unfortunately requisite disclaimer here is threefold; there is an obvious cure, it is an obvious joke, and there are still people in the world who would take such a joke as some manner of genuine threat. No, we’re not coming to apply anti-straight conversion therapy.

To the other ....

Last weekend, I was hanging out at the Cuff, the leather bar at 13th and Pine, when a man to my left pulled out a pink rubber ball.

(Baume)

Something about a setup like that goes here, but here’s another morbid joke, and this one almost worth recounting. (more…)

Nostalgia: The Mingling Scents of Bluegrass and Excrement

Ah, Kentucky. To the one, it is true that I believed nobody could top the stupidity of Paul Clement, arguing for House Republicans in Hollingsworth that irresponsible procreation by heterosexuals was a good reason to ban gay marriage.

To the other, there is Kentucky.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear says the state’s ban on gay marriage should be upheld in part because it is not discriminatory in that both gay and straight people are barred from marrying people of the same gender.

In an argument labeled absurd by gay marriage advocates, Beshear’s lawyer says in a brief filed last week at the U.S. Supreme Court that “men and women, whether heterosexual or homosexual, cannot marry persons of the same sex” under Kentucky law, making the law non-discriminatory.

The argument mirrors that offered by the state of Virginia nearly 50 years ago when it defended laws barring interracial marriage there and in 15 other states, including Kentucky, by saying they weren’t discriminatory because whites were barred from marrying blacks just as blacks were barred from marrying whites.

The Supreme Court in 1967 rejected that argument in the historic case of Loving v. Virginia, in which Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred Jeter, a black woman, were charged with a crime for marrying.

(Wolfson)

(more…)

The Oral Argument

Appetizer: Electric Kamon, with Haruko, just before dinner.  (Detail of frame from FLCL episode 4, 'Full Swing')

Okay, see if you can follow along, because, well, I’m writing it and it still seems a bit tough. So …

• … apparently someone named Alison Stevenson wrote an article for Vice explaining why she doesn’t perform oral sex on men―and apparently upset some people in the process, although not for detailing anything about her sex life but, rather, for not giving blowjobs―which, in turn …

• … moved Dan Savage to recall an occasion he upset some people for suggesting oral sex is a natural and seemingly inherent part of a sexual relationship, and then explains why he isn’t upset with Stevenson despite her apparent hypocrisy, and …

• … in a consideration seemingly unrelated yet also coincidentally appropriate, Christopher Frizzelle slogs philosophical about the nature of clickbait.

There was a point, I promise, sometime before I started typing, when this seemed like it made sense.

To the other, I freely admit that at no point did it actually seem important.

____________________

Image note: Electric Kamon with Haruko, just before dinner. (Detail of frame from FLCL episode 4, “Full Swing”)

Stevenson, Alison. “Why I Don’t Give Blowjobs”. Vice. 23 March 2015.

Savage, Dan. “Alison Stevenson Won’t Suck Your Dick”. Slog. 24 March 2015.

Frizzelle, Christopher. “What Is ‘Clickbait’?” Slog. 23 March 2015.

A Sideshow, Squared

Representative Aaron Schock, a Republican from Illinois, pauses while speaking during an interview in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2014.  Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee resisted parts of the early versions of Chairman Dave Campo's plan for the biggest tax-code changes since 1986, said Schock.  Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

“Of course, we don’t know for sure whether Schock is gay. All we know is that relatively few heterosexuals are forced from office by an interior decorating scandal.”

Matt Baume

Well, you know, there is that.

Then again, there is a bit more to it, as Matt Baume explains:

If Schock is in the closet, it’s a closet that he helped perpetuate during his years in Congress. Thanks to his opposition to open military service, marriage equality, and hate crime protection for LGBT people, he earned a perfect 0-percent rating from the Human Rights Campaign. Too bad HRC doesn’t award bonus points for best swimwear ....

.... When I talk about Schock’s “closet,” I mean the system of keeping LGBTs down by intimidating and disadvantaging them. Schock never met an anti-gay law he didn’t like, even though he was uncomfortable when asked why. Laws like those Schock supported are designed to oppress gays and lesbians, and they send a clear message: Sure, go ahead and be openly gay; just remember that you could lose your job, your home, your safety, or your life.

While it is true that Schock has long been subject to rumors and jokes about his sexualityα, it really doesn’t seem to be relevant here. Well, except for the point about the decorating.

That, at least, seems to be worth a chuckle.

And none of which should take away from Baume’s point; the LGBT community has reason to celebrate this falling from grace. Not that the one has much to do with the other except for a vague discussion about corruption of the soul or psyche, but still, you know, we take what we can get.

Ain’t that always the way?

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α There was the bit about the teal belt. And John Aravosis certainly entertained himself with the notion last year, and enough noise happened that Salon picked up on the murmur, and things have gone on the way they’ve gone on so that, well, now a scandal-plagued congressman infamous for his overdecorated office can’t possibly resign in shame without a queer question controversy.

Image note: Representative Aaron Schock, a Republican from Illinois, pauses while speaking during an interview in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2014. Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee resisted parts of the early versions of Chairman Dave Campo’s plan for the biggest tax-code changes since 1986, said Schock. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Baume, Matt. “Aaron Schock and the Closets of Downton Abbey”. The Huffington Post. 19 March 2015.

See Also:

Savage, Dan. “Rep. Aaron Schock’s Belt Is…”. Slog. 15 June 2010.

Aravosis, John. “Anti-gay GOPer Aaron Schock locks down Instagram account as outing rumors swirl”. AmericaBlog. 4 January 2014.

D’Addario, Daniel. “The bizarre quasi-‘outing’ of Aaron Schock”. Salon. 6 January 2014.

Petrow, Steven. “Civilities: Please stop pink-baiting Aaron Schock”. The Washington Post. 20 March 2015.

Indeed Bizarre

Dan Savage in NYC, uncredited photo ca. 2011.

Curtis M. Wong of Huffington Post brings us the headline, “Dan Savage Is Tied To University Of Oklahoma Racist Fraternity Scandal, FRC Pundit Claims”, and we’re just going to leave it at that, because, well, you know, it’s not that we would doubt Mr. Wong, it’s just that the lede―

The Family Research Council’s Ken Blackwell bizarrely pulled outspoken lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocate Dan Savage over into the racial controversy at University of Oklahoma’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

―is exactly accurate insofar as this really does not make any sense.

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Wong, Curtis M. “Dan Savage Is Tied To University Of Oklahoma Racist Fraternity Scandal, FRC Pundit Claims”. The Huffington Post. 12 March 2015.

The Gay Fray

Sekirei-No2-bw

Notes from the Gay Fray:

Mark the date: 28 April 2015. (Reuters)

• Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore tells judges to defy federal law. (Huffington Post)

• Is marriage equality a sign of the End Times? (Huffington Post)

• GOP presidential dreamer Ben Carson does what he does best: Open mouth, insert foot. (msnbc)

• For an encore, Dr. Carson blames the press and says, “I’m not going to really talk about that issue anymore”. (Huffington Post)

Dan Savage. Why? Because. (Slog)

― While we’re on the subject, there is also the fallout, which is well worth the savagery. (Slog)

• And something almost interesting, a right-wing sensationalist named Shoebat arguing something about Daa’ish as a component of the gay agenda. Yes, really. (Right Wing Watch)

Your War on Drugs (Cherryburst Edition)

Suicide is never funny.

Then again, if you want the detail, Oren Yaniv, et al., of New York Daily News have an article for that. Still, though, there is something much more succinct about Dan Savage’s capsule summary:

Authorities in New York City raided a maraschino cherry plant in Brooklyn looking for environmental violations because illegal runoff from the factory—maraschino red syrup and waste—was turning bees in the area red. When they spotted a false wall in the plant … the owner excused himself, went to the bathroom, and blew his brains out.

Just say 'No' to the War on Drugs.Right. Not funny. Nor is the war on drugs.

Seriously, this guy killed himself over marijuana, because, you know, it’s just like methamphetamine: “‘Underground, it was really Breaking Bad,’ said the astounded law enforcement source.”

Frankly, between growing dope and manufacturing maraschino cherries, I’d say the abuse of fruit is probably more detrimental.

Look, none of this would have happened but for the war on drugs.

This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. And this is your brain spattered all over the bathroom because there is a war on drugs.

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Yaniv, Oren, et al. “Owner of Brooklyn Maraschino Cherry company kills himself after police find huge marijuana-growing operation: sources”. New York Daily News. 24 February 2015.

A Market Symptom

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.  (Washington Times, file photo)

“Another thing that doesn’t work the way Tony Perkins would like: God’s favor. Unhinged religious conservatives like Perkins are always screaming that God punishes countries that embrace equality for LGBT people and showers blessings on countries that persecute LGBT people. But a quick look at the list of the worst places to be LGBT—Iran, Nigeria, Uganda, Russia, Cameroon—makes it clear that ‘shitty and fucked’ correlates strongly with ‘rabidly anti-queer.'”

Dan Savage

Sometimes it is enough to go with, “What he said.”

And sometimes it should be enough to do so, but it might take some explaining nonetheless.

Within that subset there are occasions when one can trade such explanation for an expression of mild exasperation as if to say, “What, you need this explained?”

Okay, that is a concession worth making on this occasion: As long as people keep sending these groups enough money to keep them in business, others will point out the dangerous, uneducated excrement they produce.

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Savage, Dan. “Tony Perkins: Same-Sex Marriage Destroys Currencies”. Slog. 16 December 2014.