 |
| June 22, 2000 Veteran gay journalist Rex Wockner flaunts his opinions in "The Wockner Wire." Check in every Friday for a dose of politics and entertainment according to Rex. k.d., baby Groovy dyke singer k.d. lang is against gay marriage -- and for some interesting reasons. "I think if we call it 'marriage,' we're never going to get anywhere," she tells the Advocate in the June 20 issue. "I think that you're playing with something that is a tradition and an institution to a certain majority of people. Why go there? Create a new language, create a new tradition, then approach the government about tax rights and rights in hospitals. Instead of fitting into something that's not ours, we have to build our own culture. We're historically an alternative and cryptic culture, and to me, that's one of the beautiful parts of being gay. Even though you may not want to live in the closet, it's about being discreet and being private and being a little more romantic." That is one packed paragraph. I have the urge to take it apart. (1) I disagree that we'll never get to get married if we call it marriage. Some state Supreme Court is going to give this to us and it's not going to take forever. The Netherlands will have actual gay marriage sometime this year or next and other northern European nations will follow. Remember, Denmark passed the kind of law Vermont just passed way back in 1989. On gay rights, America follows northern Europe. (2) That said, I like k.d.'s notion of "Why go there?" I don't want gay life to be utterly assimilated into the disturbing blandness of mainstream American culture. I've been fortunate to visit about 50 countries, and mainstream U.S. culture rates in the top five on the bland scale. This is not to say America isn't wonderful and dynamic and the land of endless opportunity in many respects. It certainly is. But this is fueled by a minority of the population. When it comes to suburbia and a huge number of states that will have to remain nameless ... give me mainstream Denmark, Mexico, Cuba, Italy, Hungary or Costa Rica any day. U.S. gay life is more interesting, dynamic and fun, by far, than the American norm. We don't want to lose that, and we may indeed be able to create something of our own that would be better than the mess called marriage. (3) k.d. seems to be suggesting that gay people are a unique people like Jews or American Indians. "Instead of fitting into something that's not ours, we have to build our own culture," she says. This is an interesting concept. I know that in all those 50-some countries I visited, I felt at home once I found the gay-male subculture, many aspects of which seem to be absolutely universal. The train station is always cruisy. The process of meeting someone on the street is the same the world over. A glance, a second glance, you stop, you pretend to look in a store window, you glance backward. And a gay bar is a gay bar is a gay bar from Moscow to Mexico City to Stockholm to Chattanooga. (The only time I was unsure of myself in a foreign gay bar was in Oaxaca, Mexico in 1985. Maybe I made a navigation error and it wasn't a gay bar, or maybe it was a bar full of gays where the owner pretended it was a straight bar, I don't know. It remains the only contradiction to my statement.) (4) I'm a little baffled that k.d. thinks being gay is still about being discreet and private. She was the first U.S. pop music star to publicly come out, for heaven's sake. I know what she's getting at, but surely we can remain "alternative" and "cryptic" (the perfect word for that bar in Oaxaca), which are good things, without being "discreet" and "private," which are classified-ad-speak used by closet cases. Cryptic I like. Cryptic is using your gaydar at your cousin's small-town wedding reception to connect with the grade-school teacher from down the block as hetero-predictability swirls around you cluelessly. OK, enough -- and apologies to k.d. I'd hate it if someone took eight of my sentences and dissected them for 800 words. (Actually, a Usenet newsgroup called soc.motss does this to me somewhat regularly and it makes me into a crazy man.) k.d.'s new album is called Invincible Summer. She says: "I hope some take it and roll down the top of their convertible and drive down PCH [Pacific Coast Highway]. I hope some people fall in love and boink to it. I hope some people cook Sunday breakfast to it. I hope that some people heal their heartbreak from it. I hope people feel love and hope when they listen to it. God, this sounds like a fucking Christian channel or something!" She says she was listening to a lot of Mamas and Papas as she wrote it. I'll buy it (deductible, you know) and report back to you. |
|
| gay marriage |