By Ann Rostow–
Sphen, We Hardly Knew You
Sad news, everyone. As the last Bay Times went to press came news that Sphen the iconic gay penguin has died. His partner, Magic, immediately began singing after Sphen was euthanized for ill health, and the rest of the penguins in the Sea Life Sydney Aquarium joined in the spontaneous display of grief. An investigation into Sphen’s illness is underway.
(I can picture the episode on one of the Britbox shows. The quirky pathologist shakes her head, pulls a slug of whiskey from the bottle, and tells the quirky detective that there’s something fishy about the scene. We wait for the toxicology report, where we discover Sphen’s bloodstream contained … ricin! It turns out the quirky nephew of the new manager of Sea Life used to be a rabid antigay activist and has connections to the Russian mafia. Gotcha, comrade!)
Sphen and Magic were the first of the many gay penguin couples that have graced the news media over the last decade, avatars of our increasing awareness that sexual diversity thrives in the animal kingdom. The two of them built nests together and tried to hatch rocks until thoughtful keepers gave them fertilized eggs that no one else was planning on hatching. Sphen left two foster chicks, Clancy and Lara (née “Sphengic”).
The couple were together for six years. Sphen was 11 when he died, about the end of the line for gentoo penguins, who live 12 to 13 years on average, the BBC reports. Magic, who is now about 8, was taken to see Sphen’s body to make sure he understood that his partner wasn’t coming back.
“The loss of Sphen is heartbreaking to the penguin colony, the team, and everyone who has been inspired or positively impacted by Sphen and Magic’s story,” the aquarium manager Richard Dilly said in a statement, the Beeb tells us.
A BBC companion piece to the penguin story reminds us that, as mentioned, there are many instances of gay or bi animals in nature—or in zoos. The news hounds have discovered another set of gay penguins at the West Midlands Safari Park, as well as a three-way relationship between two male lorikeets and a female. The female lays eggs and the males hatch the chicks. Lorikeets and penguins mate for life and lorikeets can live for 30 years, so let’s hope the parrot-like thruple can keep the romance alive for the next few decades.
And finally, we learn that a gay male pair of flamingos in Southwest England have produced a healthy chick even as zookeepers have no idea where the guys got their fertilized egg. I gather that sometimes straight bird parents will produce extra eggs and ignore them, so it’s assumed that the male flamingos found one of these abandoned chicks-to-be and generously took on the task of hatching it.
Rocky Mountain Low
I could go on. There are a lot of lesbian albatrosses, for example, because there are more females than males. But let’s put a pin in that story, shall we? Meanwhile, I was going to touch on the news that Colorado Republicans have overwhelmingly ousted their party chairman, Dave Williams, for making anti-GLBT remarks and misusing party funds for his own campaign. But, but, um … as soon as I looked a little more closely, I noticed that the party had subsequently overwhelmingly voted to keep Williams in power.
First question, do any of us really care what happens to Dave Williams? Should I perhaps just sidestep the whole mysterious scenario? Second question, don’t you now want to know what’s going on in Colorado Republican land?
Okay then! Reportedly, the first vote involved roughly 180 people, all but 12 or so who voted against Williams. The second vote involved about 200 people, all but 10 or so who voted in favor of Williams. Clearly, there are two factions here, but I’m not clear on the logistics of calling these votes, nor do I understand which of these votes is a legitimate reflection of party sentiment.
According to CBS News, Williams triggered the first vote earlier this summer, when he “sent an email attacking Pride Month and referring to the LGBTQ+ community as ‘godless groomers.’ He also called for the burning of all Pride flags on social media.” I’m happy to report that he lost his primary bid for Congress to his opponent, Jeff Crank. Crank, who positioned himself as a mainstream Republican, won 65–35 against Williams, who was (you guessed it) backed by Trump.
I think that’s all we need to know about this. I guess the courts will sort things out. Oh, but Axios Denver also tells us that a county clerk, 68-year-old Tina Peters, has pled guilty to election tampering and faces a couple decades in prison when she’s sentenced in October. Peters allowed Trump minions to access voter records and machines in an attempt to undermine Biden’s 14-point Colorado victory in 2020. What were these people thinking?
Robin Who?
Before we go on, I was struck by a commentary from a right-wing radio host called Jason Rantz, from Washington state. I guess someone was flying a rainbow flag, although Rantz notes that the guy wasn’t even gay but flew the colors as a GLBT ally. His female neighbor, in turn, found an anti-gay flag to put up, which showed a rainbow rear end and the words, “My neighbor loves butt stuff,” with an arrow pointing towards the other guy’s house. (I’m sorry, but are you frigging kidding me? Who lives here? Mary Ann Alito?)
Mr. Rantz had nothing particularly nice to say about either of these two residents. But he wound up rebuking the “butt stuff” person. That said, he comes to his conclusion via some weirdness, to paraphrase George W Bush:
“There are some on the Radical Left who feign outrage when they see an American flag. They claim it’s a symbol of white supremacy culture, spouting off whatever it is they read in a Robin DiAngelo essay,” he writes. “Their college professors taught them to hate this country and the flag sends them into a rage that can only be satiated with a public burning.”
Rantz continued: “Going into a rage over the LGBT pride flag on a neighbor’s porch? It’s just as unhinged and intolerant as progressives who burn American flags. Does this neighbor have the right to be unneighborly and display her childish (though, admittedly, funny sign)? She sure does. But why burn so much energy being a rotten neighbor?”
Say what? Who the hell feels outrage over seeing the stars and stripes? Who, over the age of 20, decides to burn the flag? Who is Robin DiAngelo? (She’s a lefty professor from some college in Washington.) Who outside of a frat house thinks “my neighbor loves butt stuff” is “funny?”
Mommy Dearest
Guess who I’m quoting:
“Gillette INTIMATE needs to be held accountable for the disgusting commercial that repeatedly hints about and focuses on shaving men’s genitalia. This specific commercial, Respect Your Junk, with its tagline, ‘Respect Your Pubic Region,’ is currently airing on television and appears to be gaining even more air time recently.”
Yes, of course, it’s our favorite Mom, the one behind the curtain at One Million Moms who sends out complaints in the voice of a Stepford wife over the microphone as we listen in the cavernous hall.
“During this commercial, the man is shown in his shower no longer wearing his towel or shaving below his belly button, while his hand continues down towards his groin. But the camera shot cuts off to the right before his pubic region is visible to the audience … . Can you imagine what goes through a child’s mind when viewing this ad? 1MM has received many complaints from parents. Gillette should be ashamed!”
Hello, Mom! By your own testimony, the only thing a child sees is a belly button, hardly the source of sexual confusion or any kind of dismay. He or she also sees a razor, an innocuous instrument not likely to cause any embarrassment during family TV time.
I have a three-year-old granddaughter who calls her mother, “Mama,” but also has an imaginary parent, “Mom,” who allows her to do whatever she likes. She frequently decides to “call Mom” on her phone, and get permission for a snack or an adventure that has been prohibited by her actual parents. I’m not sure where she got this, but now I wonder if One Million Moms might be able to groom our children with treats and favors until they can be manipulated into objecting to various advertisements. There might be a movie in this.
No Go Zone
Did you read that “Visit Florida,” the Penis-shaped State’s official tourist website, has dropped its outreach to GLBT visitors in an effort to reflect the state’s anti-gay politics? I’m not exaggerating. Visit Florida is a nonprofit established by the state legislature as a public/private partnership to welcome tourists to the state. It includes sections for Blacks, Latinos, and people with disabilities and special needs. But even though GLBT sites are still seen in the drop-down menu, the links no longer lead to pages.
“It’s fairly simple,” Dana Young, the President and CEO of Visit Florida, explained, according to WFLA News. “Visit Florida is a taxpayer-funded organization and, as such, Visit Florida, our marketing strategy, our materials, and our content must align with the state.”
Oh, and I was going to write about the son of a famous Spanish actor who murdered his boyfriend (it was an accident!), chopped up his body, and dumped the pieces somewhere in Thailand, but I had the feeling I had just written a similar snippet about someone else. More importantly, although I love the “lesbians behaving badly” rubric, the guys chopping up ex-lovers is simply not as fun. Particularly the cannibals.
The lesbians usually leave their victims alive, for one thing. Yes, they cut up their underwear, make them drive the M5 at knife point, and get plastered and scream in the streets naked in the middle of the night. But it’s harmless when all is said and done. The guys are just over the top.
But I have to thank my brilliant cousin for finding the Thailand killer, as well as passing along yet another story about the possibility that Abraham Lincoln was gay. Really? Yes, really. Abraham Lincoln; Lover of Men is a documentary coming to theaters this week that will exclusively benefit the Human Rights Campaign, our main GLBT lobbyists in DC. I really shouldn’t write about it from my position of complete ignorance, but I assume it delves into that relationship we’ve all heard about between the young Lincoln and his roommate, whatshisname, who slept in the same bed and exchanged heartfelt letters.
Either they were having an affair or they had quite a bromance going, but I don’t care either way. The man was a remarkable statesman, a magnificent president who saved our nation from a permanent rift, and freed the slaves. Why would his sexual orientation even figure in his 19th century biography, when I’m not clear on whether or not “sexual orientation” was even a thing?
Yes, of course, there were men who loved men and women who loved women, and we all love the stories of the wild west gunslinger who was really a lady and lived with, I don’t know, a beautiful bordello owner. But we don’t need Abraham Lincoln to be gay to find him extraordinary. Plus, whatever he was, he had a wife and several kids, so there’s that. And I think he had a girlfriend who died young, right? So, who knows?
That said, I promise to do more “research” so I can report in depth after this movie is released on September 6.
Finally, I have too much to say about Harris and Walz to even start. I’m filled with a mixture of hope and anxiety. I loved our convention, but got really sick of the “joy joy joy” refrain because, to me, joy comes with a victory at the end of something. The end of the game, the end of the grueling ordeal, the end of the campaign, whatever.
It’s too early for joy. We need to fight for it. I’m saving my joy for January 20, 2025.
arostow@aol.com
GLBT Fortnight in Review
Published on September 5, 2024
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