Edit (and note to Anon):
I know what Garrison Keillor was trying to do. My points are that 1) His excuse of being in show business and his article being like the good natured ribbing with which he's allowed to get away is bull shit. It's akin to the "I can use the N word eventhough I'm white because I have some black friends. 2) I get his attempt but not the execution. In my opinion he did a piss poor job of tongue-in-cheek (his words) writing, or irony, or whatever else he may have been trying to communicate.Frank Brannon puts it well (in the comments section), "What you wrote is not satirical nor witty. It's just another endless use of GLBTQ individuals as fodder for yet another media activity. You have to accept yourself as a part of that huge machination called media. We are used daily in its endless processing of humans. "
I stand by my original statement, "Fuck Garrison Keillor."
Have you read the ridiculously inflammatory op-ed piece by Garrison Keillor over at Salon? No? Well then, pop right over and observe Keillor prove himself a hypocrite, a homophobe and a bigot. Yay, a three-fer!
Don't have a premium subscription? Here are some choice bits:
I grew up the child of a mixed-gender marriage that lasted until death parted them…. Back in the day, that was the standard arrangement. Everyone had a yard, a garage, a female mom, a male dad, and a refrigerator with leftover boiled potatoes in plastic dishes with snap-on lids….
Under the old monogamous system, we didn’t have the problem of apportioning Thanksgiving and Christmas among your mother and stepdad, your dad and his third wife, your mother-in-law and her boyfriend Hal, and your father-in-law and his boyfriend Chuck. Today, serial monogamy has stretched the extended family to the breaking point. A child can now grow up with eight or nine or 10 grandparents—Gampa, Gammy, Goopa, Gumby, Papa, Poopsy, Goofy, Gaga and Chuck—and need a program to keep track of the actors.
Wow. I'd just like to point out that Keillor has been married three times. Two of these marriages have produced children. And I shouldn't be surprised that no mention is made of the millions who grew up in loveless homes with alcoholic parents who stayed together "for the sake of the children." He's right, those were much better times...jackass.
Want more? Let's see home many stereotypes he can cram into one sentence!
And now gay marriage will produce a whole new string of hyphenated relatives. In addition to the ex-stepson and ex-in-laws and your wife’s first husband’s second wife, there now will be Bruce and Kevin’s in-laws and Bruce’s ex, Mark, and Mark’s current partner, and I suppose we’ll get used to it.
The country has come to accept stereotypical gay men—sardonic fellows with fussy hair who live in over-decorated apartments with a striped sofa and a small weird dog and who worship campy performers and go in for flamboyance now and then themselves. If they want to be accepted as couples and daddies, however, the flamboyance may have to be brought under control. Parents are supposed to stand in back and not wear chartreuse pants and black polka-dot shirts. That’s for the kids. It’s their show.
What!!?? I do have to agree that no one has a right to wear chartreuse pants but I extend that rule to everyone regardless of who they love. I am shocked that people can continue to be so ignorant, that they can judge the character of a person based on who they love, that they can begrudge people in love-filled relationships the right to create their families. I certainly have something he can cram.
I am so furious I could spit.
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