Edmund White, in an interview today:
I believe in promiscuity. But you know people are a lot more complicated than they appear to be. I mean, right now I'm in a relationship where I am faithful because my partner wants me to be, and I respect him enough-and it lowers the level of anxiety in our relationship. He's also extraordinarily hot.I dunno, mostly when I think about two lawyers moving in next door, my first thought is: they're eventually going to sue me, or my dog, or my kids, or my lawn. But then I guess some kinds of bias run deeper than others.In the past, when gays were very flamboyant as drag queens or as leather queens or whatever, that just amused people. And most of the people that come and watch the gay Halloween parade, where all those excesses are on display, those are straight families, and they think it's funny. But what people don't think is so funny is when two middle-aged lawyers who are married to each other move in next door to you and your wife and they have adopted a Korean girl and they want to send her to school with your children and they want to socialize with you and share a drink over the backyard fence. That creeps people out, especially Christians. So, I don't think gay marriage is a conservative issue. I think it's a radical issue.
I think I saw that episode of Desperate Housewives.
I consistently try to refrain from painting heterosexuals in such broad strokes. I find it hypocritical.
Mr. Fancy pants blogger has a door? Well whoo whoo whoo!
Why don't you take your Rolls Royce and drive down to the Home Depot for some knob polish, Nick Denton.
Oh I was speaking hypothetically. I have neither a kid nor a dog nor a lawn.
All you have is my love Choire. And that is all you will ever need...
I also have a big bowl of change still!
But you have a Balk, a cat and a trash pile. Some of us would feel blessed by such bounty.
(I JUST GOT IT: THE CHANGEBOWL IS A METAPHOR FOR AMERICA!)
I'm more worried that your Korean kid will outshine my kid in math and science.
Yeah, you know she's going to throw the curve off.
How soon we forget the hipster grifter!
I thought gays could only be paralegals.
Doesn't mention if the middle-aged lawyers are fatties or not...
Edmund White reads N + 1 ????
LOOK AT HIM POURING LYE ALL OVER EVERYBODY'S PETRI DISH
If Edmund White reads N+1, I'm just giving up.
Also, for a moment I thought Ed White was th guy with the ascots on "Gossip Girl". Sorry, college degree!
Am I the only one here who doesn't find drag queens funny?
as an entity, or in conversation?
Or as a term?
I'm lost already.
'cuase let me tell you, listening to some old queen go on and on about stocking runs and cocks while stubble peeks through the pancake makeup and I've had a few mai tais, well... ain't much that's funnier than that.
That does sound funny, HG. I sometimes get uneasy with the idea of drag queens because it seems like they're parodying my gender. But I can easily man up (so to speak) and get over myself. Especially after a few mai tais.
Who does the best Carol Channing? Choire or Balk?
The best Joan Crawford...?
Andrew Sullivan made a similar argument in Virtually Normal (1995) when he identified gay marriage as the most socially and politically relevant battle for homosexual people--although (if memory serves) he did not characterize gay marriage as "radical."
I am sympathetic to White, who seems to want marriage as an option, though seemingly not a normative status.
So his boyfriend who does not let him see anyone else is the 31 year old guy who lives in Spain? Yes the reason I am not dating anyone is that I too have an imaginary hot boyfriend who lives in a distant county and he gets really jealous when I talk to other imaginary men.
we have so much in common!
Is his name George Glass?
That made broccoli come out of my nose. Ouch!
The thing that most gay activists fail to comprehend, because it's the most frightening possibility for them, is that most people just don't give a fuck about them one way or another. Gay activists divide the world into people who love them and people who hate them, when in reality most people are totally meh.
That's kind of the point, though. I am willing to bet that most gay men (since we never really seem to be talking about lesbians) are not dope-addled promiscuous drag queens--in fact, pace Greif, they're very much like anybody else, and sooner or later want to settle down & have a pretty average life, for which they're going to need the same legal rights as everybody else. In any case, I don't know any gay person over thirty who is opposed on principle to the right to gay marriage.
OH I DO. Eeesh, please come talk to my friends for me, it is somewhat awkward.
Choire- What exactly are they opposed to, the act or the principle?
come. on.
"Currently, thousands of gay people, exhilarated by the thought of legal recognition, forget their prior political commitments and their hopes for a social movement that exceeds the demand for this one legal right. They do not think about the history of property and race that has gone into the idealized version of the institution they are entering, and they do not consider what social forms of kinship they are delegitimizing along the way. If gay marriage promises health insurance, power of attorney and inheritance rights for one's partner, then perhaps we can consider an alternative political path. Instead of battling for gay marriage, we could be seeking legislation to guarantee healthcare to every citizen regardless of marital status, to separate power of attorney and inheritance from marital status and to leave marriage as a "symbolic" act that consenting adults might perform if they so wish."
Judith Butler
Oh, those gay people! If only they were smart enough to determine and act in their own best interest. Sadly, "we" will have to deny them certain basic legal rights until they get off their asses and support "our" political agenda.
Is that more or less right?
If the lawyer couple moves in next to me, I'll be wondering when lawyering became so low-rent.
everybody i know is a dope-addled promiscuous drag queen (happily!), they are certainly not an andrew sullivan. and there is nothing remotely radical about the right to marry. for anyone. but yay if you want it. what would be radical is civil unions. and then you could choose to have a super catholic wedding. i hate when people make their own vows.
and i'm jewish! so confusing! what we want!