The flap about Jerry Falwell and the Teletubby "Tinky Winky"
seems to have grown out of a misunderstanding. Falwell said
on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect" that it was an editorial
reference by one of his magazine's editors to implications about
Tinky Winky's "sexuality" made by the Washington Post in January.
Rev. Falwell claimed that he had never seen the Teletubbies and had no
opinion about them until he was attacked in the press for "his"
statements about Tinky Winky. At least he had the grace to back
off from such hateful stupidity: an allegation that the children's TV
character from Great Britain is gay because it is purple, wears
a triangle on its head and carries a purse.
Rev. Falwell added that after a sermon of his at a church other than
his own, the local minister walked onstage and presented him with a
full-size, stuffed-animal Tinky Winky which the Rev. Falwell graciously
accepted before apologizing from the podium to "the grandchildren in
the church" for the misunderstanding.
Perhaps in recognition of the low rating of the Christian right among the
general population, the fundamentalist minister maintained amicable
and non-combative behavior throughout the program and steered well away
from the gay-bashing with which he is often associated. Thank you,
Rev. Falwell. Another guest on Bill Maher's show joined in the attempt
to lighten the discussion by suggesting that Tinky Winky might, after all, be
gay. "Maybe he's one of those 'purple people-eaters!'" he laughed, and brought down the house. To his credit, Rev. Falwell found that funny, too.
Not so apologetic is another right-wing group, the Christian Action
Network, who are seeking to place an "HC" (for "homosexual content")
warning label on television shows featuring gay characters or dealing
with homosexual situations. They intend to marginalize and stigmatize
us even more than we are now in the ongoing "Christian" effort to
demonize the gay population in the deceptive guise of shielding
childish minds, which undoubedly includes their own, from the realities
of the human condition.
Also not apologetic was the handsome actor John Schneider,
who appeared on "Politically Incorrect" the night before Rev. Falwell.
This arrogant stud, who seemed to think of himself as desirable to all
homosexual males, was almost boastful about his homophobia and went
so far as to suggest that separate public restrooms be established for us.
Although an attractive guy, his antiquated and obtuse notions made him
hideous to me. To people like him, segregation has not gone out of style
and probably never will -- certainly not as long as thinking like his
motivates straight, mostly white, mostly men to drag innocent victims of
racist and sexist hatred behind pickup trucks in Texas or to string them
up on fences in Montana or in any other state of the Union.
That is my worst fear about the new millennium: the take-over of
Unitedstatesian political, religious and social life by these unregenerate,
fascist elements steamrolling their views into laws -- over the bodies of
an apathetic voting public unwilling to assume enough civic responsibility
to stop these Frankenstein monsters at the polls.
My greatest hope for the new millennium is that the closeted gay and
lesbian people of the United States will rise up and step into the
guaranteed privacy of the voting booth to stop the steamrollers in their
tracks. Even if these
quiet ones do not expose themselves as gay to the world at large, they
can thus help empower all homosexual men and women everywhere by
making the United States an example of true freedom "from sea to shining sea" --
at long last.
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