CommuniKate

Because of a long-standing prior commitment to some darling lesbians and a boat, I will not be performing at the Restoring Sanity Rally in DC this weekend. Not that anyone asked.

While I believe that humor can do serious work, I’m worried that the Restoring Sanity Rally will be a bit too ironic for its own good. I’ve read Comedy Central’s disclaimers that they are going to try not to be political. I hope The Restoring Sanity Rally is not political in the same way that cry-baby booby Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally was not political.

The whole notion of restoring sanity relies on the lovely if naive premise that there was some baseline of national sanity in the first place. Perhaps a displaced but witty Native American will give the opening blessing.

The Restoring Sanity Rally sounds like a huge national Alcoholics Anonymous Round-Up with a focus on AA’s second step: “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” Unfortunately many believe that greater power is Sarah Palin.

If you think of our dear nation as a child, and of Europe as our qualifying, crazy-ass, violent alcoholic parents, the Sanity rally has perhaps more of an ACOA spin. As an adult children of alcoholics nation, we have been trying to make the world safe, through hideously inappropriate behavior: pre-emptive wars, nation building, ‘free’ trade. We owe the whole world an amends at this point.

I’ll try to TIVO the Sanity Rally and the Keep Fear Alive March. I’ll get the on-the-ground scoop from my friends, but I hope [not Beck-restored hope] that the rally does not dissipate real political anger. It already has siphoned off a lot of last-minute door-to-door get-out-the-vote volunteers. Of course I would prefer incitement to riot, without the guns or tear gas, to enticement to rally. At this particular moment in our nation, ironic bonhomie is no substitute for making a stone cold sober decision to turn our political will into greater political power. That is also a good starter amends.

How far back did Cher turn time?

Neanderthal NY Republican Gubernatorial wannabe Carl Paladino, looking like that other homophobic-spewer Pope John Paul, knuckle-drags out tired old anti-gay tropes – brain-washing, pride parade indecencies, I wouldn’t want my nieces, etc. Paladino sounds like the crazy porn-loving Uncle at the holiday table who has a few belts and starts his “I’ll tell you what I think. . .” as everybody rolls their eyes and starts to clear the table.

Uncle Carl’s remarks are of course stand-alone despicable, but even more so in the context of the heinous gay-bashing in the Bronx by the Latin King Goonies. The vileness of his ham-handed remarks to Orthodox Jews and his subsequent morning talk show re-affirmation of those remarks is amplified in the context of the recent cluster of gay suicides.

Every day well-financed puppets of right wing extremism pop up like hydra-headed wac-a-moles. The team just keeps coming at you. And now the Buffalo Bullies have super-fine, foxy feminista cheerleaders The Grizzly Gals!

WTF??

While I like to think that it gets better and that these are the dying gasps of a flailing campaign or the last foul breaths of the rigor mortis that is homophobia, I don’t have the luxury of “I’m just sayin. . “ Nor should a mumble-core Cuomo or an unenthusiastic electorate.

My dear galpal reminds me the only antidote to this bitter bile is action. So I’m brewing a big witch’s vat of Bitter Begone! It’s lo-cal. Come out. Speak out. Vote. Dammit.

Those were my emotional flash card options when I first started therapy. I would tell stories about growing up and my therapist would ask me how I felt. I’d start, “Well I think. . .” That’s when she started with the cards.

No matter what I think about the causes of the horrible cluster of recent gay suicides – about LGBT bullying, cyberspace, privacy, gay youth, Rev. Eddie Long, schools, the Catholic Church, anti-Social Networks – I feel sad for the families who have lost their sons and daughters, mad that bullying is still so prevalent and glad that everyone is talking about it.

I have been struck by the conversations I have had with my family and straight friends, who tell me how disturbing it is, how they worry about their children and grandchildren and wonder what can be done. I hang up the phone and look at it and think, “What do you think I’ve been talking about all these years?”

What they think is that the battle is won. They look at me and my dear partner and think, “You’re out. You’re comfortable. You’ve got a life.”

These suicides provide another flashpoint in our movement for full moral equality. This October 11, on yet another National Coming Out Day, I intend to come out to my family again and remind them that our battle is not over and that we need their help. Perhaps I’ll finally tell them my own stories of being bullied.