‘Hiding Out’ Author Talks Drugs, Deception, and Double Lives I thought my dad saddled me with some psychological baggage. He used to leap around naked in…
Writer & Columnist • Santa Barbara, CA
Writer & Columnist • Santa Barbara, CA
‘Hiding Out’ Author Talks Drugs, Deception, and Double Lives I thought my dad saddled me with some psychological baggage. He used to leap around naked in…
Kristy McNichol has come out as a lesbian — in order to help people.
Do me a favor and read that sentence again. In a rational world, that string of words would make no sense whatsoever. In a reasonable society, the apropos-of-nothing proclamations of a 1970s child star and all-but-forgotten TV actress wouldn’t even be interesting, much less beneficial. In the universe I’d like to one day inhabit, no one would care about the sexual preferences of a woman whose face you probably can’t even picture.
I have nothing against Kristy McNichol. As a girl, I had a poster of her and her brother Jimmy, whose feathered mane, hairless chest, gold chain necklace, and loving proximity to his all-American tomboy sister made him precisely effeminate enough to be irresistibly, nonthreateningly attractive to a 7-year-old girl. (Oh, the ironies.)
But it disappoints me that Kristy can release a statement a third of a century later saying she’s a lady lover and it makes the damned news cycle. Who cares if Kristy McNichol is into girls? Who cares if the Osmond brothers like to dress up in women’s clothing (I made that up, don’t sue me) or if a young Danny Bonaduce ran a prostitution ring out of his Partridge Family trailer (I made that up, too, but would you be surprised if it were true?).
It’s the love that dare not speak its name — especially if you’re in Tennessee, where it could land you in jail.
The state’s Senate just passed a bill that would make it illegal to teach about homosexuality in public schools from kindergarten through 8th grade. No gay-marriage chatter. No gay-rights banter. No gay gayness of any gay sort.
Dubbed the “Don’t Say ‘Gay’ Bill” by opponents, the measure insists that any instruction or materials provided to students on the subject of sexuality must be “limited exclusively to natural reproductive science.” Teachers who violate the rule could be fined up to $50 and sentenced to as many as 30 days behind bars.
Supporters say the bill allows parents, rather than teachers, to decide when and what (and, er, if?) their children learn about homosexuality. As if they didn’t actually learn all they need to know from watching Modern Family.
But to me, the whole gay gag just looks like a bunch of uptight Republicans trying to squash a squirrelly little slice of reality that makes them terribly uncomfortable. And maybe just the slightest bit tingly.
We used to be the shizzle. Remember? For decades, California was the nation’s pacesetter. The birthplace of Barbie, blue jeans, and the birth control pill, the Golden State prided itself on dragging the rest of the nation into tomorrow. Or, at the very least, into Tomorrowland.
Faced with decisions like, “Shall we elect a glute-flexing cyborg as governor?” and “Should we light up the country’s first medical marijuana initiative?” we grinned our laidback grins, sipped our Left Coast syrah, and said, “Sure! Why not?”
We were the heralds of “hot.” The harbingers of “hip.” But no more.
Last week, our high court handed that mantle over to a pot-bellied, farm-belt state called Iowa. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Whereas California’s Supreme Court voted to uphold a ban on gay marriage, Iowa has been marrying gays since April.
They’re not the only ones. Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont have given their blessings to gay nuptials, too.
But Iowa? The court’s decision was unanimous, and emphatic. Stephen Colbert joked that the ruling makes sense. “There’s nothing else to do in Iowa: shuck corn, drag race, pound a sixer, shuck more corn, propose to your football coach.”
Woo hoo! You did it! You really stuck it to those romance-punchy, justice-squawking gays. It’s been two weeks since you succeeded in “protecting” the fine institute of marriage from those who would … who would … I don’t know, but I’m sure they would muck it up somehow.
So tell me, how does it feel?
Well, that’s a silly question because it feels the same as it did before, right? Your happy hetero marriage wasn’t actually affected by the vote. Really, your life is exactly the same today as if Prop. 8 had failed. It’s only those sexual deviants — the monogamous ones, the ones whose lives look just like yours except for their pelvic hardware — whose lives have changed. Some of them may even have their marriages busted up.
But it does feel good to deny people something they really want, doesn’t it? Something you were born with but they’ve had to plead for. Ha! Good times, good times.