The inductees into the Homohater Hall of Shame for June 2003 make up a bipartisan group of US Representatives who have bravely proposed an anti-gay constitutional amendment in spite of the popularity of the NBC sitcom “Will and Grace.” The lucky bigots are, in reverse alphabetical order:
These plucky conservatives have introduced the Federal Marriage Amendment, which aims to prevent same-sex marriages from being legally recognized. Concerned citizens may wonder why homohaters are seeking to add discrimination to the US Constitution, rather than depending on the more standard mechanisms of legislation and private business practices to keep those irreverent gays down. Well, intolerant federal lawmakers are worried about our wacky, ultra-leftist judicial system. It turns out that there are lots of kooky courts which just might rule that denying homosexuals the right to marry is unconstitutional! The nerve! Such rulings would threaten the ironically-named Defense of Marriage Acts (DOMA) that have been passed in thirty-seven states and as federal law. DOMA laws define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Do the math . . . there’s no room for gays to edge in on that kind of marriage! (The great state of Texas recently earned an honorable mention in the Homohater Hall of Shame for being the 37th state to pass a DOMA law. Everything’s bigger in Texas--especially bigotry!) The fact that homohaters are resorting to the arduous process of trying to amend the constitution is, the reader will note, evidence that they recognize their intolerance to be unconstitutional. But we don’t judge here at the Homohater Hall of Shame (setting aside the explicitly normative language in our name, of course). We’re proud to recognize these six "value"-conserving lawmakers for their stalwart attempts to stand in the way of the ideal of equality upon which this great country was founded. From all of us here at the Homohater Hall of Shame, shame on you!
For five to ten seconds of amusement (depending on the speed of your Internet connection), check out Do Not Touch That!
I know, I know, Headlines 38 was not my best material. I liked the WMD thing--or at least, I liked the concept. I don’t know if the execution quite worked. The Matchbox thing is great, it has a really timeless appeal, but of course I can’t really take any credit for it . . . except in a sort of modernist, found-art kind of way, and we all know how well that stuff goes over these days! The "Funky Water" bit was something of a three-legged horse on wheels for me, to use the old saying. I almost never work with a punchline in mind (as I’m sure the reader has noticed!) but that bit was actually written for the line about water that smells bad, which is practically nothing, I mean, come on! But I got to make up some product names along the way, and I do so love that kind of thing. Then, of course, the whole reason we pushed 38 through was because of the "website fans" bit, which was in response to an email from Eric Shaaf, which is just plain ridiculous because I didn’t even write him back for another two days, so why rush the Headlines, right? What can I say . . . you win some, you lose some, you know? Nobody’s perfect.
If you can believe that.
Long time small town resident Ian Vandewalker has found it somewhat difficult to get used to using public transportation since he moved to New York City for the summer to live with his beautiful, charming, talented, and very understanding girlfriend, Jessica Willis. Said Vandewalker, "Well, the Subway is one thing. Waiting for trains sucks, and being on a crowed train sucks, those are obvious. But a rarely discussed difficulty with the organization and representation of the Subway is that, for synesthetics like myself, the color scheme is all wrong. For example, the JMZ is kind of tan on Subway maps. But for me, J is purple, M is red, and Z is orange. And the 456--which J. Lo loves so much--is green on the map, but for me it's blue, black, and light green! It’s not all bad, of course: the maps do have the right color for the A train, which you must take, although the blue is a little too deep. But every synesthetic’s color associations are different. I think city planners are just completely ignoring the needs of over a thousandth of a percent of the population, and that’s disgraceful!" As it turns out, a dearth of Subway lines running between Williamsburg and Downtown Brooklyn force Vandewalker to take a bus to work, which has caused the young bourgeois some discomfort. Quoth Vandewalker, "Well, I can’t quite figure out what the class status of riding the bus is here in New York. I know that in small towns and suburban areas, bus riding is very low class, because practically everybody has a car. Buses are the only public transportation, and everybody who can avoids them. But in the big city there are many different forms of mass transit. What’s the difference in class status between the Subway and a bus? I have no schema to apply here! However, I have noticed that school crossing guards get to ride the bus for free, which is pretty sweet. Maybe I should look into that--although, as far as I can tell, being an old lady is a prerequisite."