In an appearance on yet another right wingnut talk program, Ricky Sanctimonious played his oh-so-tired homo card.  Again.

This time he was on Janet Parshall's America (I wish I had my own America), a nationally syndicated talk radio program. I picked this up from the Raw Story. 

Read what Ricky has to say this time ...

It is. If you think about it, Janet, from everything from Brokeback Mountain to, you know, all the TV shows that you see promoting and affirming alternative lifestyles -- I guess to put it nicely -- you would think that the culture would eventually just move in the other direction. But I think these kind of debates are the chance for a public discourse to counter what Hollywood is purveying to our young people. Not just what Hollywood is purveying to young people, to all people. And it's an opportunity for us to get beyond, you know, 'We should treat everybody nicely.' I'm for treating everybody nicely, but that doesn't mean that we need to change the law to recognize a form of marriage that is harmful to our country.

Hey, hey --- I wonder if Santorum spokesfag Robert Traynham gets treated nicely when he's asked to spin yet another stupid lie to cover Ricky's ass?  You could say he's the right man for that job, but that would be an overly obvious joke. 

And, of course, there are still no details on how gay marriage will hurt the country.  Perhaps Ricky left that document in Penn Hills when he moved?  

Last night, we toddled off to The Eagle to catch Steel Queer N'At, a quarterly performance of Pittsburgh queer talent put together by a local eclectic queer art collective.  For months, we've talked about going to the monthly K'vetch performances (third Thursdays at Modern Formations in Garfield), but something always came up. So this was our big chance to see what all the fuss was about.

It was awesome (except for one detail I'll get to later).  The organizers did a great job staging an outrageous, sexy show that made me think and, even more importantly, made me want to take some action ... to pick up my pen, pick up my picket sign and pick my ass up off the couch. 

The performers were this amazing group of rowdy, righteous, motivated babes (and a few gents) who had something important ... a whole lotta something important .... to say and did it with style and words and music and movement that left the audience panting for more.  In a good way.  

It was also easily the most diverse group of queer women I've encountered in Pgh.  Most every gay event is pure white with maybe one or two token minorities.  And most every gay event organizers claim that they don't know how to connect with gay minorities.  Perhaps they should get in touch with the collective because they seem to be doing a fine job.

We loved 'em all for speaking their truth, for speaking out loud and for getting up on that stage to just speak. 

The next Steel Queer N'At should be in October.  We'll post it here with plenty of advance warning so you can catch the show. October is also the Celebrate the Night performance night, but we'll post on that separately.

Now here's our concern.  The performers howled about women taking back control of our bodies, our sexuality, our health and our identity.  They called out corporate America for filling our bodies with poisons and to society for boxing us in with few choices.  It was chilling and it was the truth.

It was also done in a room filled with smoke.  And there lies the rub.  If I wanted to hear the message, I had no choice but to expose myself to second hand smoke for the entire evening.  Every smoker in that room took away my control over the very air I breathe.  To hear their message, I had to sacrifice my own ability to breath and speak.  How is this inclusive or empowering? 

I respect that each woman, each person, in that room has the right to choose to smoke, but they shouldn't have the right to force me to smoke, too.   If someone drank too much or acted obnoxiously, I could choose to move away.  There's was nowhere to hide from the smoke.  I had to leave the space to reclaim my breath. 

On their website, they write:

We are creating a new aesthetic and we do this collectively because it is absolutely necessary for our health, well-being and struggle.

If you take the beauty industry to task for seducing us into inserting carcinogens into our vaginas, what about the tobacco industry's well-documented coercion of smokers?  Studies show that lesbians are 70% more likely to smoke than heterosexual women; 25 % of lesbians smoke.  I can't find the stats on the incidents of lung cancer and emphysema for lesbians versus heterosexual women, but I'm guessing there's a statistically significant difference. 

That means roughly 75% of us don't smoke.  Why force us to compromise our health to be part of the Steel Queer N'At experience?  Why not have a smoke-free event and ask the smokers to respect me and my choices about MY health enough to step outside? Even make the performance area itself smoke free and have the smokers go downstairs to the third floor to smoke -- its not even outside.  If a few smokers choose not to attend, I guarantee more non-smokers will gladly take their seats. 

A smoke-free event would rock.  I want to go again and want to take my women friends with me, but they won't willingly go into an environment where they can't breathe freely.  No one should.

Look for another post soon comparing and critiquing the lesbian performance experiences in Pittsburgh.

And check out the Steel Queer N'At collective for a consciousness raising jolt to your LGBT identity.  You won't regret it.

All I can do with a straight face is post the link.

I missed this, but on Thursday the Trib published a column by Jim Powell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute (limited government, free markets, etc). 

Powell explains how federal regulation of marriage proved to be a bad conservative idea back in the days of Theodore Roosevelt. 

Polygamous families were producing more children than monogamous families and TR feared that polygamy would sweep the nation. He recommended a constitutional amendment banning polygamy. He came close to suggesting that there ought to be a law making it mandatory for monogamous families to have children.

Aside from the characters on HBO, do you know any polygamous families?  

Powell continues:

One big problem with the idea of federalizing everything is the assumption that the "right" people will always be in control.

<snip>

Mindful of historical reality, one has to consider the possibility that if the marriage amendment is ratified, it will strengthen precedents for the federal government to find new ways of interfering in people's personal lives. At least some of the interference will likely be abhorrent to the religious right.

All very excellent points.  But Powell fails to carry his argument to its logical conclusion -- its not so much federal control of marriage that's abhorrent as government control period.  Why should the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania exert that latitude of control over marital and, by default, nonmarital relationships? 

We've already seen examples of the damage that the amendments can do vis a vis blasting domestic violence convictions out of the water for unmarried couples.  People of faith should rethink this because its not just the great unwashed sinners who run into this wall of control.  If your engaged virginic daughter is beaten by her fiancee, she may have no legal recourse.  If he waits until they are married to beat her, she's all set.  That makes no fucking sense.

Powell wraps up with a call to the conservative faithful to live up to their own ideals rather than imposing them on others:

If they really want to promote traditional marriage, conservative people of faith should do two things:

First, they could marry someone of the opposite sex and set an example of how beautiful such unions can be.

Second, rather than working to close off the rights of gays, they should use their political efforts to abolish the obnoxious marriage tax penalty. Then all people of every sect and philosophy would owe them a debt of gratitude.

I'd go a bit further.  If the conservatives want to preserve the institution of marriage and protect families, they should put down their fetus signs and sign up as a foster family.  It is the best way to help put a family back together.

Soulforce is hoping to put up 16 of these billboards in June in opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment.  You can help. 

The anti-gay forces are making another attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution to define marriage in such a way as to exclude the families of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee is their agent for putting the Federal Marriage Amendment before the Senate.

During this summer's fight to defeat the FMA, these billboards will serve as a powerful reminder that Coretta Scott King called for legal protections for same-gender families. And we are placing them in Senator Frist's hometown.

It would be nice to see some in Pennsylvania.  Senator Santorum's former hometown.