Most days i forget i am queer. It just seems so much part of my life that it betrays thought. Then a few things pile up and i remember. This week it happened. It started of with a 1968 volume on Homosexuality. It made the argument that we were not sick fucks . We were pathetic and diseased individuals. Then Franks Who's Gay Issue poked up. Frank is the canuck version of to Private Eye. Who's Gay is usually a dishy treat. This time it was petty and small. Then a bus driver called me cream puff. I yelled back at him " I prefer faggot". Two mooks on the train yesterday were talking about fags taking their jobs. Then Bush suspended the restrictions on queers in the army.
I think that we have made progress. Death in Venice is taught in high schools, Our Lady of the Flowers is taught in colleges. Porn is availble in the local news stand. We can talk about sex. The media loves us it gives us sitcoms . We have a dozen glossies that we can pour over. We are mentioned enough ads that there is an archive .
We have our own publishing sections at the big houses. We have three shelves on most bookstores. We can get married in Europe and Canada . We can adopt Children. We have Barry Frank and Svend Robinson. Cable shows explicit queer sex . Every town almost know has a community center . We square dance and do rodeo .
There are still problems. We can point out other countries We can mourn for the 52 people who are about to die for sodomy in Egypt. We can notice the draconian laws in a million places. We can blame homophobia on backwater rednecks. We can say we are safe in the cities. But even if this were true there still are loads of problems. I would argue that were are not safe in cities. I would argue the shows that are given credit for queer lives exoticize it or geld it. I would argue that we are being distracted by the orgnaztions that are supposed to protect us.
We have misplaced our priorities . We have allowed GLAAD to speak for us. One of our tools used to be outrage . WE used to throw shoes and coins at cops . We flirted with homophobes. We held kiss ins and died in the streets. Now we are like a school marm, telling artists not to offend and give money if they do. We make sure people tow the lines. They yelled at Elton and Kevin Smith because hate cannot be funny. Hate has to be funny. We NEED camp. It is the way we process They charge artists money the minute they cross the boundary. They enforce a stalinist orthodoxy with guilt , this is censorus black mail. Remember Blackmail. It was the reason we were not allowed in the CIA, CSIS, The Police Services, The Army. Now we are doing it.
What do they support . Will and Grace . Yeah the drag queen and the eunuch guppie are great role models. played by the actor who refuses to come out of the closet and the actor whose marriage is mentioned in every episode. The only queer actress on that show plays a sociopathic lush . ( She's also the funniest)
The other shows on TV that show queer life tell us we are closet queens (6 feet under), Sluts ( Queer as Folk ) or Perverts ( Law and Order ).
We are also fighting for marriage. The archaic breeder ritual which was a way to confirm the legitimacy of woman as property is viewed as the most important tool of our liberation beside adoption. So know we are safe. We are no longer those nasty fellows who fuck and dress in woman's clothing . We are nurturers for the children no one wanted

Sodomy is illegal in 13 states. Lesbians, bisexuals and Transgendereds have not entered into the public discourse . Queer Bashing and Murder is incredibly common . It is not safe to be a young queer in schools. No one knows anything in grade 10. Lets them not all flock to Houston and New York and Vancouver. Lets make everyone safe and legal in Edmonton and Lubbock and Patterson. The first Pansy Division song i heard made me feel belong. Out made me feel small and working class. Out still makes me feel working class. But we don't talk about class because we are all happy in our queer utopia