Out of the streets, into the closets!
Kirk and Madsen have solved the crucial question of
How to Make Straight People Like Gay People...
just Look Straight. Feel Straight, Be Straight
B Y
B Y
B A R D __ M I C H A E L S
you that this work of “art” is “politically
correct.”
f you want to read a book that can change
As a mental health practitioner, my
your life, start here: After The Ball: How
motivation is to give some good counsel, to
America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred o f help you create and pass your own internal
Gays in the 90s by Marshall Kirk and Hunter
Mother Test: Would I want my mother to
Madsen.
read/know this about me? The real point is,
Here’s an analogy from the book to
what do you want to know about yourself as a
activate your imagination: "An eight-hundred
gay person? If you are even slightly inclined
pound gorilla sits where it wants; we, how­
to “the truth,” we are on the same wavelength.
ever, are not seen as eight-hundred pound
After The Ball is about telling the truth.
gorillas.” (p. 140). In a sentence, this vignette
It’s about coming home to ourselves, coming
is the very heart of this masterful analysis of
out of denial, having the willingness and the
the gay liberation movement and the fairy tale
desire as in Tradition Three of the Twelve
turned nightmare: a la Mercer Mayer’s There
Step Program. It’s about constructive criti­
Is a Nightmare in My Closet (correction:
cism, self-criticism, and most of all, it’s about
OUR closet).
developing a personal code of ethics and
Ah! there is nothing so sublime as humor
morality that can guide us to become the
turned in healthy criticism upon the foibles of
bigger selves we long to be.
the self. After The Ball will do more for your
Finally, it is a blueprint for developing
sense of humor and your capacity to see your­
something we all dream about; creating
self, your life, and the “movement” in greater
working relationships, extended intergenera-
perspective than anything else $20 can buy.
tional family, and a campaign to “Wage
With one prerequisite: “Do you have the guts
Peace” in the national arena for human, civil,
to look at yourself and the mental power to
and sexual rights.
conduct a healthy sclf-evaluation/examina-
Perhaps enough of us will buy, read, and
lion?” If your answer is even a haughty
share the book so that a number of small
“Maybe!” — you’ve got the opportunity.
discussion groups will spring up and the
(An aside: practice “good” politics — buy
process will help us at the local level to do
the book from A W oman's Place Bookstore
some recovery from the aftermath of Ballot
Measure 8. The best antidote for depression
and support one your most powerful allies.)
is a healthy plan of action with lots of doses of
I’ve waited 20 years for this book. Now,
amidst all my fantasizing, I am free to ponder
interaction and lively discussion.
its sequel. The title? Coming Home: or
After The Ball is a timely arrival at a
Mopping Floors in Glass Slippers Is Not
significant political crossroads. I hope our
Glamorous, Silly; It’s Dangerous!
responses to the challenges of this book arc
worthy of its intentions. Two of your brothers
Hoorays and kudos for the authors. They
love you enough to want you to experience,
have guts and fine minds. Their medicine will
own, and share the truth of who you really
not go down “with a spoonful of sugar.” It
are, and who you can become. Sufficient
will take something more like castor oil. If
enough motivation in itself for you to let it in.
you’ve been politically constipated for a while
this treatise will move all your innards. I am
* _________ _______ __________________ ▼
not interested in entertaining you as a literary
critic. Neither is it my intention to convince
Bard Michaels lives in Portland.
I
just ota ▼ 16 ▼ Septem ber 19C9
ROGERS
fter a few months’ bout with the equal
debilitations of taxes and of internal
medicine, I emerged from what I thought was
a fantasy world of the IRS and medical tests
into the even more appalling fantasy world of
Heterosexual Batmania. I warned you all that
this would happen. First DC Comics sacked
Dick Grayson. Then they completely de-
Robined Batman. Now Batman is running
around with Kim Basinger. For those of us
raised in the great days of superhero camp,
when Batman and Robin were an item, when
Superman hung out in Bizarro-land, and when
I was just waiting for Wonder Woman to ask
why she was wasting her time on the stupid
lunk Steve Trevor, it is clear that the world
has gone crazy.
Having been away from the so-called real
world only to emerge around Gay Pride Day, I
see these phenomena quite clearly. Attention
sports fans...the world is crawling with
nouveau-heterosexuality — except, appar­
ently, in the nation’s capital, Fantasyland
USA, where some of the latest scandals sur­
rounding the last administration are proving
what I always thought: Nancy Reagan was
First Fag Hag of the United States. It appears
that our fine fundamentalist government was
crawling with escort service-dependent
officials. Everyone knows, though, that
Washington isn’t the real world. In the real
world these days, even Batman is straight. At
least Wonder Woman finally ditched Steve.
Even the gay community, it appears, is
going straight — or, if it isn’t, it seems we’re
supposed to be pretending to do so. This
high-IQ concept is now out of the closet and
between the covers of a new book. More
alarmingly, it’s between the covers of a new
book written by people who claim to be real,
live, non-heterosexual, Kinsey-5-or-bctter
persons. How on earth could Marshall Kirk
and Hunter Madsen, supposedly intelligent —
or at least supposedly literate — gay-type
persons, come up with After the Ball, the book
that will inspire the slogan “Out of the streets
and into the closet’7 Their theory is simple,
or at least simple-minded. Gay liberation
hasn’t been as successful as the civil rights
movement, they say. Why? Because straight
people do not like homosexual people.
Kirk and Madsen have solved the crucial
question of How To Make Straight People
Like Gay People. So to be liked, folks, just
Look Straight, Feel Straight, Be Straight. Gay
people, according to our heroes, do not
Behave Properly. Not to Behave Properly is
the worst sin that Harvard graduates such as
Kirk and Madsen can imagine. To Behave
Properly, one is to follow the example of Mr.
Kirk and Mr. Madsen. Buy a house in the
suburbs. Buy some Brooks Brothers suits —
A
We are not eight-hundred pound
gorillas, yet!
MAR A K A Y
men only, please. Buy a station wagon and a
riding lawn mower. Wear hom rims. Do
nothing that would alarm your Sainted Aunt
Heloise in public. Why, no — can it be?
Straight people will like you folks, if — if —
if you’re Clark Kent. Straight people like
nerds! They like guys who wear Van Heuscn
shirts and who barbecue steaks — no grilled
tuna, please — on backyard charcoal grills
next to their Ford Country Squire wagons.
This applies to men only, of course. Kirk and
Madsen don’t worry about lesbians; I guess
our authors were at Harvard before women
got there, so they never met any women. I
guess straight people might like Lois Lane. Is
she too ballsy? You think so? Well, maybe
they like Kim Basinger. Batman’s giving her
a shot, anyway; I guess the barbecue and hom
rims were even more threatening to Bruce
Wayne than girls are.
I am serious, folks. I could never invent
something this absurd. I ’ve seen photographs
of Kirk and Madsen, by the way. They bear a
strange resemblance to Clark Kent, hom rims
and all. Only the most severely heterosexual-
worshiping self-hating gay men alive could
think up the platform of refusing to support
saving the whales because it’s too left for
straight people to like the concept. Only a
really warped mind could conclude that gay
groups are not respected because gay groups
are concerned about migrant worker oppres­
sion. Did I mention what these exponents of
the gay KKK think of drag? Oh, by now you
won’t bat an eyelash at their quote that
straight people hate us “not just for the myths
and lies we say we are, but also for what we
really are.” Kirk and Madsen want us to clean
up the gay image, or so they say. They want
us to scrub down. I hate to tell them that too
many discussions of gays getting “cleaned up”
and “scrubbed down” remind me of the Nazi
concept of how to operate a shower stall.
Kirk and Madsen go one better on the idea,
however. Rather than get herded into the
poisoned shower at gunpoint, grab your soap
and towel and volunteer for it.
First Batman went hetero. Now we’ve got
gay authors asking us to trade our old Batman
and Robin comics for some nice, straight
Superman comics and try the Clark Kent
makeover on ourselves. The message is clear.
The writing is on the bathroom wall. It’s time
for us to crawl back in the closet, gang. These
nice, edificated gay authors are telling us so.
You think you’ve got some kind of right to
sleep with guys or something, fella? We
don’t want no gay waiters here. Just gay
Republican officials in Washington.
▼
Mar okay Rogers lives and writes in York,
Pennsylvania. Her column 'Turning It Over”
appears in the Baltimore Gaypaper.