The Red Scare

A Bitch's boss-lady-in-charge, who is also (incidentally), my boss-lady-in-charge has decided that today would be a good day to clean our office.

A Bitch wrote last night from Vegas and while she may not consider herself lucky at cards -- I suggest a Bitch go roll some dice. Her lucky and fortunate ass is missing one hell of a day of house cleaning. Actually, I know exactly what a Bitch would say (and do) if I asked her to clean our floor to ceiling windows.

Anyway...before I get all crazy with the Windex, let me share with y'all an interesting development in the gay political leadership here in the city of St. Louis.

The Red Scare

It seems that some folks here in St. Louis have organized to celebrate National Coming Out Day. That's the day in which homos (like myself) are supposed to say, "Hey, world! I'm gay!"

To which the world usually says, "We know, queen....thank God you finally figured it out! Now get over here and finish fixing my car, styling my hair, giving me that blow job, etc. etc. etc."

A Bitch and I often regale each other with our own coming out stories. I was 18 and drunk (for the very first time). All it took was a bottle of Popov, a tape recorder and The Lion and the Cobra. I was in my dorm room, sitting around with some friends taping a goofy-ass conversation about changing the world while Sinead O'Connor played in the background.

It took...oh...all of three drinks and suddenly I was gushing about this super-dreamy boy with the bluest-of-blue eyes in one of my design classes when another friend walked in to join in the festivities.

"I'm gay!" I screamed at my friend.

"Um...Rob....I knew that the moment I met you," my friend replied, "I'm from San Francisco, remember?"

So much for melodramatical revelations -- but it felt like a small victory. Granted, my revelation occurred at the same moment I became a binge-drinking alcoholic, but that just adds to the whole sad charm of the moment, doesn't it?

One would think, 16 years later, that National Coming Out Day would be an easier process. But local gay leadership, including the Stonewall Democrats and the Log Cabin Republicans are not participating in this year's event.

The reason? Well...according to the Stonewall Democrats:

"We are a political party and we have to think, ‘does this advance Democratic causes?’”

The Log Cabin Republicans chimed-in with:

“There is no way LCR will be part of an event co-sponsored by the Communist party.”

YES! You read that right (and correctly).

It seems that the local chapter of the Communist Party is sponsoring National Coming Out Day -- and the city's political gay leadership is acting in typical gay-bullshit political fashion.

Gay Democrats are employing the tried-and-true evasive ass "assessment" technique while Gay Republicans seem to be reacting the way Gay Democrats used to act -- think self-hating, Communist-baiting, innocent-people killing assholes like Roy Cohn.

It seems in times like these -- that the Gay political movement has somehow gone from Stonewall to Eight-Ball. I don't know what these queens are smoking -- but National Coming Out Day should be one thing that we all can enjoy -- even if you're a bullet-dodging Democrat, a Roy Cohn Wanna-Be or a Pinko-Commie-Liberal. I don't know what this world is coming to when queer folks run screaming from some well-intentioned Communists. If history serves a purpose, let's not forget that gay folks and Communists were herded up into concentration camps along with a whole variety of folks who were considered "outsiders". It's chicken-shit bullshit politics as far as I'm concerened.

This void in leadership, in light of what awaits me today, points to the fact that every so often -- sometimes you just gotta clean house.