AND SUDDENLY THE GAY PEOPLE WILL DECIDE THE ELECTION

To review:

ITEM: VP Joe Biden says he’s totally cool with gay marriage.

ITEM: North Carolina officially bans gay marriage, to the surprise of none of the other 49 states.

ITEM: A California senate committee clears a bill banning conversion therapy that purports to straighten out yr gay teenager on the grounds that the therapy is both stupid and dangerous.

ITEM: Presidente Obama comes out of the closet and says he’s now in favor of the gay marriage. The first pro-gay marriage fundraiser email goes out shortly thereafter.

And so gay marriage is now the most important issue facing America in this election. Well, at least in the media. Because gay marriage MUCH better television than economic charts.

I don't have much to say about the California and North Carolina stories that I haven't said before (except to paraphrase John Scalzi by pointing out to all the people denouncing NC as dumb hick rednecks that gay marriage bans are by no means limited to the South – 30 states have passed similar amendments).

As for Presidente Obama ... well, not to be Johnny Raincloud here, but I can’t help thinking his “evolution” on the gay marriage issue is a little more politically calculated than that.

I don’t necessarily buy the going theory that Joe Biden accidentally forced Obama’s hand by going off-message (though it’s amusing how that angle gets so much traction simply because of Biden’s reputation as Gaffe Master General, even though personally I’ve never noticed him say anything dumber than the average politician – he’s certainly no Dan Quayle).

That said, there’s also talk that Shotgun Joe’s gaffe was no gaffe but more of an advance-guard tactic to set the scene for Obama’s turnaround.

Maybe. Either way, I do think Obama’s timing is deliberate – I think he’s been waiting for The Right Time to commit himself to openly backing same-sex marriage. And that time, for whatever reason, is now.

I shouldn’t complain, of course. When it comes to gay rights, you take what you can get and keep pushing forward. And Obama’s explicit support is a start, although how long it will take for that to evolve into action is anyone’s guess – certainly not until he’s secured his second term. (See, there I go again. Sorry …)

Anyway, if it freaks the hell out of the “OMG THE GAYS ARE TAKING OVER!” dingbats, I’m generally in favor of it.

Oh, and a shout-out to Fox News for saying that Obama only wants to use gay marriage as a wedge issue to distract from his failing economic policies. Ha ha. Good one, Fox. It’s like Rick Santorum never ran for President talking mostly about gay marriage and contraceptives and got enough traction on those issues to give Mitt Romney a run for his money.

Heh heh. Seriously, you guys slay me. No, really, stop, I’m gonna bust a gut here.

Which isn’t to say Obama has no use for wedge issues. While he could probably beat Romney if the economy stays the main focus of the election, Obama was always going to look better running against a blithering idiot like Santorum and his Big Gaypocalypse meme. With Romney now the likely opponent, gay marriage was only likely to become a hot issue if Obama decided to make it one.

But it’s just precious to hear conservatives criticize Obama for doing what they’ve been doing for years, to say nothing of using a political strategy the GOP practically invented.

Let’s get married,

This is dF

dEFROG ON 45 # 35: YOU GET TOO MUCH, YOU GET TOO HIGH

I grew up listening to Top 40 radio in the 70s. One of the drawbacks of getting yr music intelligence from Top 40 radio is the lack of context – you can hear a song by a band you assume is new but has actually been around for years.

For example, I had no idea who Sweet was when they released “Love Is Like Oxygen” in 1978. I just liked the song, and added it to my 45 collection.

It would be a few years later that I would hear a copy of Desolation Boulevard (i.e. the one with “Ballroom Blitz” on it, which of course surprised me, as I thought it was a Krokus song). It sounded like a different band to me. And I liked this band a lot more.

The moral? Well, there isn’t one. Except that sometimes the best way to discover new music is to explore the past. Or something.

FUN FACT: I heard Desolation Blvd at the birthday party of a friend’s sister, who also happened to be a lesbian. Consequently, there were a lot of LGBTs in attendance, some of them very obviously couples. I was 16, and whilst I was aware of the existence of LGBTs and was okay with that, I had never really been exposed to the LGBT community before.

Here’s what I learned: gay parties are FUN parties.

Sorry, Rick Santorum.

Gonna spend my days in bed,

This is dF

YOUTUBE SURVIVOR SERIES #126: SHE GOT SOME OF THE WOMAN AS WELL AS ME

Apropos of the previous post – my hearing Sweet’s Desolation Blvd for the first time at a LGBT-populated party:

One of the tracks on that album, of course, is “AC DC”, which is about a bisexual girlfriend. It was also the track that caught my attention enough to ask someone what band that was playing on the hi-fi.

It's also one of my favorite tracks on the album.

I wouldn’t say it’s exactly a pro-gay anthem or anything (in as much as heterosexual fantasies about lesbians aren’t exactly the same thing as being in favor of gay rights). But it just seems right that I heard it first in that particular setting.

She got girls all over world,

This is dF