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As someone who has slept with a variety of Judeo-Christian religious figures over the years–including youth ministers, pastors, priests, deacons, and a rabbi or two–I find it amusing that some PC extremists would like to draw clear, distinct lines between homos (that’s us) and certain Catholic priests recently in the news (that’s them). Such folks like to base their distinctions on the difference between homosexuality and pedophilia–a distinction I understand and with which I generally agree. In this particular case, though, I think there’s significant fuzzy area–and fuzzy area, unfortunately, is one thing PC/queer theory dullards can’t seem to abide.

You see, my friends, in many, many of the aforementioned cases, priests were abusing kids in their teens–long after the elementary school androgyny that so turns on the pedophile had worn off. And when we’re talking about men who fuck boys 14, 15, 16, 17 years old, I think it’s a patently ludicrous political move to try to lump them all in with the pedophiles; obviously, a significant percentage of them are homosexual. Maybe they’re homosexual pedophiles–who am I to say?–but after the kids sprout pubic hair, we’re clearly moving into a different territory.

I don’t understand why activists are so reluctant to acknowledge that Western gay culture has a thing for the teenage body. I mean, have these people never been to a circuit party and noticed that most of the homos there shave their chests to affect a pre-bar mitzvah look? Have they looked at gay porn sites recently? Of course they have! (I know because PC gay men are always-already pro-sex and pro-porn.) How can they not notice that every other smuty popup is flashing something about “barely legal” twinks? When it comes down to it, the majority of gay men are no different from the majority of straight men: most of ’em just want a young, tight ass to bang. Does that make them pedophiles? If so, you’d better ring up Morris Bart, ’cause we’ve got a nation full of child molesters to start prosecuting.

But enough polemics. All I’m saying here is that it’s wrong to try to completely distance our community from the priests in question by saying they’re not really homosexuals. Frankly, it’s been my experience that many folks in religious positions are, in fact, closeted homos who have turned to religion because it’s an answer to the moral ambiguity of secular life: if I’m a priest–so the thinking goes–I can’t be gay because it’s not allowed, so all this emotional/sexual anguish I’m feeling with simply go away. It should be no surprise that that kind of running from one’s own psycho-sexual makeup isn’t very effective.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I myself was sleeping with 30-, 40-, and 50-year-old men when I was 14, 15, 16, 17. (In my hometown, there were no kids my own age with whom I could fool around, and without these older guys, I would have killed myself or gone crazy–not necessarily in that order.) These men, though, weren’t just having sex with me, they were sleeping with each other, too–other men their own age. So, I speak from experience when I say that just because someone’s getting it on with a 14-year-old doesn’t necessarily make him/her a pedophile.

Trust the tramps of the world, dearie. We sometimes know what we’re talking about.

So, a friend of mine who works for a major library in Mississippi (yes, people actually read there, can you believe it?) was recently given the task of cataloguing a bunch of old films from the Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service (that’s a farm thing, for you urbanites). Among most titillating titles she’s tagged have been:

• Chickens of Tomorrow
• It’s Lamb Time
• Meat and Romance
• Pork Around the Clock
• Men Who Grow Cotton

Maybe it’s the theatre fag in me, or maybe…nah, it’s the theatre fag in me: they sound like song titles from a fabulously tragic 1953 movie musical about impoverished migrant laborers of the Delta.

Just wait till I pitch it to Hal Prince.

Tonight on Sex and the City: Carrie picks apart her current relationship like a Lobster Fradiavolo dinner platter. Samantha’s in over her head in bed. Charlotte’s Prince Charming turns out to be a freak. Miranda’s freak turns out to be a Prince Charming. The four gals avoid work, eat countless meals, never gain an ounce, and end up back at square one.

I love that episode.

Meanwhile, on network television, Trading Spaces: Boys vs. Girls is helping the homo recruitment cause by encouraging boys to discuss color swatches and teaching them words like “gusset,” “porte-cochere,” and “window treatment.” It’s so gratifying to see our agenda at work.

Yes, I’ve been busy.

Two shows up and running. A stack of grant apps signed, sealed, and delivered. A little more work on the house. A never-ending to-do list of bills, taxes, chores, and errands. As Fred Schneider once said, the party goes on forever…

In fact, things got so delightfully overwhelming that day before yesterday, my body shut down. It does that every so often–usually right after I’ve finished a major project. This time, the meltdown followed the opening weekend of Bluebeard: I was out walking the hounds, and I felt a stabbing pain in my stomach. By the time I got back to the house, I was having chills. I stayed home from work, wrapped under covers on the living room sofa, trying to find positions that wouldn’t make me nauseous.

Less than 24 hours and two bowls of the bf‘s chicken soup later, it was over, and I felt stupid. Thanks to my innately high stress-level, I’ve been through this a zillion times since 4th grade. You’d think that by now I’d be able to see trouble brewing on the horizon and chill out, but apparently I’m not that clever–which makes me a little concerned about the future. At this rate, by the time I hit retirement I’ll be a shriveled knot of ulcers and boils: the sort of person fit only to write romance novels or perform character roles in summer-stock productions of The Tempest. Ugh. How ever will I find the courage to face the throngs of aging, addled circuit fags lounging by the pool of our retirement villa in Fort Lauderdale?

Still, other than those two issues (my ill-balanced humours and a fear I’ll succumb to the “gay retirement lifestyle”), I’m not really the sort of guy who’s concerned about getting older. Frankly, older is where it’s at (as the non-old ones say these days). Our elders get yes-sirred and no-m’amed, and they get good seats on the bus. And in my book, older men are about 50 times sexier than their juniors. What’s not to look forward to?

In all honesty, the one thing that truly concerns me about getting older is my lack of energy. Well, not energy, per se, but, like, creative energy. I mean, I don’t write nearly as much as I used to. I don’t read as much, either. I feel like I’m losing language skills left and right. I feel like I’ve got a couple of books in me, somewhere–though I guess it’s possible that they’ve already come out as blog entries or plays. And then again, if the writing urge isn’t so strong in me right now, maybe I shouldn’t push it. I mean, who wants to read stuff written by someone who’s not really compelled to write?

Kinda like this crap.

As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in [homosexual] unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood. Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development.

— papal bull (I use the term loosely) from the New York Times

So, leaving children in the care of two loving, caring, homosexuals is worse than leaving them in the care of one unsupervised, lecherous, homosexual priest?

And what “experience” has shown him this? Does anyone know of a study that proves his wacko conclusions? Frankly, I was under the impression that just the opposite was true…

Today, the New York Times published a complete transcript of W’s Rose Garden press conference. Out of 11 webpages of text, three tiny paragraphs in the middle of page 5 somehow drew top headlines on both the Times’ website and CNN. Why? Because in those 137 words, the Collander in Chief finally made a statement on gay marriage. Surprise, surprise: he’s not in favor of it.

And yet, it’s not as simple as that. W may be an idiot, but he’s a crafty idiot. He’s kept quiet on the issue of queer marriage for as long as he has because he wants to look compassionate and not alienate the soccer moms who got him (s)elected. Now, however, the polls show a fairly strong backlash against homos since the Supreme Court effectively legalized sodomy earlier this summer: not to bum y’all out or anything, but according to CNN

The number of people who have endorsed the idea that homosexual relations should be legal has dropped from 60 percent to 48 percent since the ruling, and only 40 percent of Americans say they now would support civil unions for homosexuals.

Ergo, W thinks its safe to swim in the waters of social conservatism again. (Or maybe he’s just striking back at liberals after his lukewarm reception from the Urban League yesterday. Sour grapes.)

Still, all isn’t lost. Like I said, that’s one crafty dumbass we’ve got in that big ol’ white house: by arguing against a Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriages and suggesting that there are other legal solutions to the “problem,” W is essentially leaving open the door for a constitutional challenge to any law that he might propose. That’s not so bad in my book. I mean, if you were a homo lawyer fighting for queer marriage–and who’s to say you aren’t?–wouldn’t you rather argue against a measly law than a piece of the Constitution?

Personally, I don’t have a problem with the Pentagon’s weird-ass plan to set up a worldwide betting parlor for freaks who like to wager on terrorist acts. As long as they include a special section for some of us to lay down our ducats estimating how many times W will say “newkewlur” or “‘merkins” in his next speech (e.g. “My fellow merkins, we ain’t found ’em yet, but I know that ol’ Saddam had some newkewlur weapons in his toolshed.”) or guessing which Republican senator will be the next to accuse a Democratic senator of infidelity or homosexuality or “rewriting history,” I’m cool.

N.Y. to Open 1st Public Gay High School

Hmmm. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this one. I mean, I’m uncomfortable with the whole “gay ghetto” thing in the first place, and if anything reeked of ghettoization, this is it. I also try to steer clear of anything too “lifestyle-ish,” and this easily falls into that category…but do I have the leisure to hold such views because I’m a quasi-privileged white faggot living in a quasi-gay ghetto in a relatively GLBT tolerant city?

In one of those strange alliances not seen since left wing feminists and right wing conservatives teamed up with Dworkin and McKinnon to fight Canadian porn, I find myself agreeing with conservatives–not because, as Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long argues, I believe GLBT kids should be forced to flounder about in the same failing educational system as their hetero counterparts, but rather because I feel young queers should probably be exposed to homophobic assholes like Long as often as possible so they don’t experience any rude awakenings after graduation. Trial by fire, I guess you’d call it.

But then, they didn’t ask me, did they?

Well hello, nurse! It looks like one of America’s hottest studs is back on the market. Get in line, boys!

I’m growing increasingly frustrated by the Bush team’s accusation that folks are “rewriting history” simply because they’re looking critically at information that was put forward by the administration to further its agenda. If you ask me, that whiny, Because-I’m-the-daddy-that’s-why attitude is a big, fat cop-out. What’s more, it’s a rhetorical dead-end: in W’s garbled lingo, asking questions of the administration’s motives and/or actions is tantamount to high treason.

Maybe I don’t read as much as some of you, but I have yet to find an article that really tackles this issue. I can’t believe I’m the only one who sees the flaws in Bush’s arguments. I mean, Maureen Dowd seems to loathe everything about Bush, and even she hasn’t said anything about it. It’s as though everyone assumes (a) he’s right, and (b) there’s something inherently wrong about re-examining “facts.” Of course, given that a close inspection of the “facts” of the 2000 presidential election–not to mention the endless (and fruitless) investigations of former president Clinton–would probably prove disastrous for Bush and the Right, I’m not really surprised.

Yes, I know: I’m preaching to the choir. And yes, I know: politics are dull. But they pay me to sit at this desk, so I gotta look busy.