Friday February 10, 2006 SGN.org |
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Volume 34 Issue 06 |
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Saturday, Mar 20, 2010
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Rex Wockner |
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| Wockner Wire | |
| DUBYA MAKES ME DO IT
I've had the final Wockner Wire column written for a while now, but each time I'm ready to send in the last installment (I've been writing it for 20 years) something stupid happens that I can't resist spouting off about. Like George W. Bush speaking at Kansas State University the other day. At some kind of unscripted Q&A thing, this student dude says to Dubya: "You're a rancher. A lot of us here in Kansas are ranchers. I was just wanting to get your opinion on Brokeback Mountain, if you'd seen it yet? You would love it. You should check it out." Dubya started making faces even before the question was finished. "I hadn't seen it," he replied, followed by three seconds of silence during which he shifted his jaw from side to side like he does. He then turned his gaze from the questioner and looked straight ahead. "I'll be glad to talk about ranching, but I haven't seen the movie." He grinned, shifted his head and raised his eyebrows. "I've heard about it." He looked down and made a serious face. "I hope you go - uh -" He looked up and laughed. "-you know, heh-heh, heh-heh - I hope you go back to the ranch and the farm is what I was about to say. I hadn't seen it." I hope you go back to the ranch and the farm? Isn't is astonishing that the most powerful man in the world regularly says things that are completely nonsensical? The question was: Have you seen Brokeback Mountain? And the answer was: No, I hope you go back to the ranch and the farm. Shoot me now. But the best was yet to come. Twelve seconds passed between Bush pointing at the next questioner and the man actually opening his mouth, during which Bush made a total of four attempts with hand gestures and facial expressions to try to get the guy to start talking. About something else. Anything else! Change the topic now! There's a clip of the whole episode at http://www.shostako.com/bush_clip.wmv. You should watch it to get the full effect of Bush's facial expressions, which ranged from amused to worried to swaggering to consternated. RETHINKING MARRIAGE It's rare in this age of same-sex-marriage mania for a Gay celeb to speak against it, but singer Jimmy Somerville let loose in a recent interview with the Australian Gay newspaper Sydney Star Observer. "Marriage ... is so redundant for heterosexuals and homosexuals in the 21st century," he said. "It should be about partnerships and everyone having the same rights, but I think leaving marriage to the extremes of the church is where it belongs. It is so sad we feel it is some kind of progress and we are now turning it into something else to celebrate. I am so disappointed. Of course someone should be able to celebrate their relationship and their love, but drop the marriage and move on and call it something else." This is a valid viewpoint that rarely gets air time anymore. In essence, let the churches have marriage and if the state feels compelled to shower certain benefits on formalized couples, let it do so via a purely secular process that is divorced from the historically religious concept of marriage. Great idea. But, fat chance, of course. Gays surely will have better luck using courts and legislatures to gain access to an existing institution than they will trying to create a new institution that would apply to straight people, too. Meanwhile, in the grand tradition of British Gay celebrities snipping at each other, Jimmy also let loose on the Rocket Man. "Elton John and David Furnish are such the face of Gay respectability," he said. "It is like the dirtier side of homosexuality has to be swept under the carpet. It has become so sanitized and so chocolate box powdery, and that is really frustrating. The diversity of sexuality should be the beauty of it, but now there is so much focus on this new Gay royalty and they are all so squeaky clean. Oh, it is so tedious!" Jimmy and I part company here. The "dirtier side of homosexuality" is a lengthy, sordid list of usually dysfunctional behaviors that much more often than not produce less happiness in an individual's life. Don't most Gay people want the same thing that most people hope for - a joyous, love-filled, sex-crazed relationship with someone with whom they share common values, ideas and interests, and with whom they can confront the pleasures, pains, conundrums and beauty of life on the planet as a team, rather than alone? It's easy for some folks to become bitter if they've too many times fallen for someone who wasn't right for them - which inevitably produces pain, disaster and hopelessness. Here's hoping Jimmy meets one of the soulmates that exist for him on the planet, recognizes it when it happens, and ends up as happy as Elton and David seem to be. |
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| Quote/Unquote - sorry no column this week | |
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| International News | |
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| CZECH REPUBLIC
PASSES GAY PARTNERSHIP BILL
A same-sex partnership bill passed the Czech Republic Senate Jan. 26. The vote was 45 to 14 with six abstentions. Sixteen senators were absent. The measure previously passed the Chamber of Deputies and now awaits a decision by President Vaclav Klaus, who has hinted he might veto it. The legislation extends to registered same-sex couples many of the rights and obligations of marriage, but does not provide access to marriage itself or to adoption. "I think the most important thing was that [MPs] actually saw us and that they saw that we are no different, that we are just normal people," activist Tereza Kodickova told Radio Prague. "And then of course we used the argument of the European Union a lot and of equal rights and equal treatment and the fact that registered partnerships of this kind exist in other countries," she added. A recent poll by the Public Opinion Research Center (CVVM) found that 62 percent of Czechs support same-sex registered partnership. CANADIAN SAME-SEX MARRIAGE FACES THREAT Canada's new Conservative government, elected Jan. 23, is threatening to try to undo the nation's legalization of same-sex marriage. The Conservative Party platform promises to "hold a truly free vote on the definition of marriage in the next session of Parliament [and] if the resolution is passed, [to] introduce legislation to restore the traditional definition of marriage while respecting existing same-sex marriages." But the move apparently is not an immediate priority and, according to polls, would not be supported by a majority of Canadians. The party's press officer told the San Francisco Chronicle that "things like same-sex marriage [are] on the back burner." Turning back the clock also may not be possible. The government probably does not have the votes to pass the resolution and, even if it does, the fact remains that courts in nine of Canada's 13 provinces and territories have ruled that prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying violates the nation's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. To get around that, the government would have to utilize the charter's "notwithstanding clause," which has never been used. It allows provinces or the federal Parliament to enact temporary laws (for five years) that violate the charter's protections. FORMER MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER SUED OVER ATTEMPTED OUTING Former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim sued former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad for about $27 million Jan. 27 for allegedly defaming him by calling him Gay. Mahathir has "outed" Anwar repeatedly over a period of several years - and did so again last September, saying he fired Anwar in 1998 to prevent Malaysia from ending up with a homosexual leader. "I cannot have a person who is like that in my cabinet who may succeed and become the prime minister," Mahathir said. "Imagine having a Gay prime minister. Nobody would be safe." Anwar was jailed for nine years in 2000 for allegedly engaging in same-sex sodomy but he was released in 2004 after the Federal Court ruled the evidence against him had been unreliable. Anwar and human-rights groups have said the charges were bogus and that he was framed because Mahathir feared Anwar was scheming to replace him. Anwar recently won more than $1 million in a lawsuit against publishers of a book that repeated the sodomy allegations. "I will not allow this lie and slander to continue," he said at the time. "My sacking from the government [was] part of a high-level political conspiracy." The maximum punishment for having Gay sex in Malaysia is 20 years in jail and a flogging. JERUSALEM PRIDE PARADE STABBER CONVICTED A man who stabbed three marchers at last year's Jerusalem Gay-pride parade was convicted of attempted murder Jan. 31, the Jerusalem Post reported. Yishai Schlissel, 30, will be sentenced at a later date. The State Attorney's Office is seeking a 10-year prison term. "I came to murder on behalf of God. We can't have such abomination in the country," Schlissel told police. None of the victims was seriously injured. Mayor Uri Lupolianski had tried to prevent the parade, which drew about 10,000 marchers, but he was thwarted by the Jerusalem District Court. Gay activists blamed Lupolianski's "incitement" for the violence. PORTUGUESE LESBIANS TRY TO GET MARRIED Two Portuguese Lesbians were turned away when they tried to get married at the Lisbon public registry office Feb. 1. The rejection had been expected and Teresa Pires, 28, and Helena Paixão, 35, already had launched a legal case based on the Constitution's prohibition against discrimination based on sexual orientation - a protection that was added in 2004. At the same time, the Portuguese Civil Code states that "marriage is a contract celebrated between two persons of opposite sex." The matter will wind through the Portuguese and possibly the European court systems. Neighboring Spain is one of four nations in the world where same-sex couples have access to regular marriage, along with Belgium, Canada and the Netherlands. A court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in South Africa will take effect next Dec. 1 unless Parliament makes the change sooner. CAMEROON NEWSPAPERS OUT ALLEGED GAYS Three newspapers in Yaoundé, Cameroon, have published lists of more than 50 prominent personalities outing them as allegedly Gay. The articles appeared over the past month in La Météo, Nouvelle Afrique and L'Anecdote. According to Radio France Internationale, the lists included government officials, business executives, celebrities and other public figures - living and dead. According to the German wire service Deutsche Presse Agentur, one named individual, Minister of Communication Pierre Moukoko Mbonjo, commented: "People do not engage in these practices in public so where do the journalists get the names? Either they participated or they are themselves homosexual." Gay sex is illegal in Cameroon, punishable with up to five years in prison. |
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