may 7.2004 * J l l S t OU t 49
HUMOR
f i l l 1 1 I hen are you going to write about
m W f l O xd Straight People?"
My friend Joan asks me this every
H -
time 1 run into her, usually at a pre
miere or a gay charity event. You see, despite
being straight, Joan and her husband, Randy, give
more support to gays than a 2(x)ist Y-back thong.
Cool Straight People come in lots of flavors:
the PFLAG mom making tofu nut loaf for the les
bian potluck, the hetero hottie who pinches your
butt on the dance floor, the groovy grandpa remi
niscing about World War 11 with a vet in a
sequined ball gown.
I’m lucky to know
dozens of such people
including Joe, the
straight owner of Ziva
Salon, where I get my
hair cut. Joe was so
excited when I got
married in Canada last
year that he handed
me a $100 gift certifi
cate for hair and skin
products— in other
words, the gayest wed
ding gift ever.
by Marc Acito
Or my buddy
Shannon in L.A., who described sending flow
ers anonymously online to a couple in San
Francisco as “the coolest thing I’ve ever done,”
which, considering her rocker-chick past, is no
small achievement.
Or Sam, my 84-year-old father-in-law (or
perhaps I should say “out-law"), who continues
to write epic letters to the editor on behalf of
me and Floyd.
W hat makes these people cool is not that
they’re so comfortable with us that they for-
The Gospel
According
to M arc
Straight talk
Why we need <
heterosexuals
jjj
get we’re gay, but that we’re so comfort
able with them that we forget they’re
not. (And a good thing, too. Do you
have any idea what heterosexuals do in
bed together?)
Others setting the gay record straight are
The New York Times’ Frank Rich, once derided
by bitchy queens as “The Butcher of Broad
way" and now transformed into “The Writer of
Wrongs” for his insightful commentary on the
not-so-right wing.
Or Q u etta Scott King, who called the pro
posed constitutional amendment banning
same-sex marriages “a form of gay-bashing.” Or
Bette Midler, whose letter to the president has
been forwarded to me more times than that
request for funds from a Nigerian businessman.
Then there are politicians like Robert Hav-
em, a state senator in Massachusetts who said
that those who are uncomfortable with gay sex
should endorse gay marriage, because everyone
knows that “after marriage, there is no sex.”
LOVE him.
O f course, there’s Mayor Gavin Newsom of
San Francisco, who is as brave as he is totally
cute, or Jason West, the mayor of New Paltz,
N.Y., who doesn’t even look old enough to
order a drink, let alone officiate a marriage.
nd here in Oregon, we have the Multno
mah County commissioners or, as I prefer
I to call them, the Fab Four.
Like Mayors Newsom
and West, these courageous women
have been roundly criticized for not including
the public in what has come to be known as
the Wednesday Morning Surprise, which is just
another way for our opponents to say they’re
pissed they didn’t get to stop it.
Critics are calling Multnomah County
“a government by the people, for the people,
by four people.” The Oregonian has even gone
so far as to demand their recall.
But the Fab Four understood that you sim
ply cannot put civil rights to a popular vote. As
Dr. Ellen Scheiner of Berkeley, Calif., said: “No
majority voted Rosa Parks to the front of the
bus. She had to do that for herself.”
The morning the commissioners decided to
issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples was
history-making for Oregon, in part because the
rest of the world finally learned how to spell
“Multnomah.”
(Is it just me, or does my county sound like
an internal organ? “I’m sorry, but your
multnomah is badly inflamed.”)
Floyd and I got up at Dark O ’Clock that
morning to get a gtxxl place in line, only to
discover that— poof—our Canadian marriage
was now legally recognized in Portland.
But there was no place I would rather have
been. Seeing hundreds of people rounding the
block remind
ed me of the
South Africans
who lined up to
vote for the
first time.
Or Madonna
fans lining up for tickets.
The commissioners took a lot of heat at
their press conference; they looked as nervous
as the contestants heading into the boardroom
on The Apprentice.
But I believe history will be kind to the Fab
Four, and when the books are written about
the civil rights heroes of our day, these names
will be writ large:
DIANE LINN
SERENA CRUZ
LISA N A ITO
M ARIA RO JO DE STEFFEY
So I ask you, dear readers, take a moment
and send this article to your favorite Cool
Straight Person with your thanks. Remember,
we can’t win this battle without them.
And that, my friends, is T he Gospel
According to Marc. JH
M a r c AciTOs first novel, How I Paid for
Qillege, will be published in September. Write him
at w w w .m arcacito.ann.
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