Just thought when you thought our homo rights movement was complete, a high-school sociology curriculum in BC had the gay beat out of it by parents worried that it will “alter the beliefs” of students. Oh stop with the code already! They think the kids will be turned queer but everybody knows that high school is too late: the Teletubbies have already done it!
In Ottawa, the Hill Times reports that gay voters are an ever-increasing bloc yet we’re left largely uncatered to by our political parties. It’s always been this way: the NDP are like the married spouse who takes us for granted; the Liberals are the boyfriend who says he loves us but keeps sleeping with other people; and the Conservatives are the creepy closet case who has sex with us occasionally and then calls us “faggot” in public. (Say, who’s that sexy new Green fellow over there?)
Even with the awful prospect of a Harper majority, it’s still easy to feel good about Canada once you look to the south: the Wall Street meltdown is truly horrifying and Bush’s obscene plan to take $700 billion from taxpayers and give it no-strings-attached to the bankers who caused it is even worse. John McCain helped create this economic disaster but blogger Josh Marshall disturbingly predicts, “The Republican/McCain plan is to get the Democrats to bail out the GOP’s Wall Street friends and then run against them for doing it.” McCain’s “maverick” schtick is about as believable as Jeremy Piven’s hairpiece.
Fortunately, there’s at least one Democrat with a spine in Congress (though still anonymous) who’s trying to stop the Wall Street bailout plan: “I want reforms of the industry, and I want it to be as punitive as possible…I’m open to other ideas, and I am looking for volunteers who want to hold the sons of bitches so I can beat the crap out of them.” Attaboy! If Obama talked like that, he’d be president tomorrow!
But McCain may be more of a swinger than we thought: his ’50s fling from Brazil says he was a great lover and calls him her “coconut dessert” (wow, some days there’s just not enough eww) and, in an outing shocker, McCain’s chief of staff Mark Buse has been given the Roy Cohn award for the most harm done to the gay community by a gay man.
I can’t imagine what conversations between Buse and Sarah Palin must be like but I suspect they get along okay, since she thinks he’ll be left behind in the coming End Times. Does the idea of the potential President Palin being a Rapture-ready fundamentalist Christian seem scary? Hey, at least she’s not a bat-shit-crazy-child-molesting Rapture-ready fundamentalist Christian. My favourite line in the CNN exposé of yet another cult? “Evangelist Tony Alamo denies wrongdoing, compares self to Jesus.” Of course he does!
Other signs of hope for the US: a transgender woman won a landmark discrimination lawsuit (that’s a hot tranny yes!) and California polls show more people in favour of gay marriage. Steven Spielberg just donated a cool $100,000 to the cause (toda!) and the first TV ads are charming (too bad Barack Obama had to go and start raising eyebrows…).
And in celebrity silliness, Jimmy Kimmel talked to Olympic champion Michael Phelps about his new career in acting (I think Ben Affleck’s gonna be jealous!) while the delightful Illeana Douglas and Jane Lynch appear in a new series of ads for Ikea. At least I think it’s an ad — either that or a really bad acid trip…
Why you can trust Xtra
