The Latest Newsweek Cover
Below is another post that I wrote to protest the latest Newsweek Magazine cover, which I still can't understand how anyone in their right mind would want to publish, and yet they did. That "they" includes first and foremost Andrew Sullivan again, he of "The Dish," and to whom I directed this post or email, that, however, like the first one, I have not yet made up my mind to send to that totally guilty party.
You and Newsweek are to be roundly condemned for your surpassingly stupid cover crowing in big letters that B. Obama is America's first gay President, without any qualification whatsoever. That designation is not only dumb, but also it is false, unless you have access to private information about the President's sexual leanings that nobody else except him has. Did you clear this with the President before you talked to the Newsweek editors? I'm guessing the answer is no, because I can't believe that he is at all happy with being called "gay." By all accounts he has been happily married to a nice woman, not a man, for many years, and he has apparently had no problem with bodily cooperating with her in producing two daughters and raising them.
I understand how you can be so deeply committed to the legitimacy of being gay and of gay marriage. But in your complete obsession with being gay, you don't seem to have understood that with people who are not gay, there can be a big difference between supporting marriage equality and being thought of as being gay.
You reasoned that the cover wording was all right and even catchy and apt, because of the thing of Bill Clinton being called the "first black President." But there's a big difference there, too, that may not have occurred to you, though it should've been all too visible. Clinton is obviously not a so-called "black" person and has never claimed to be. So the subtlety of that designation is easy to see in his case. It's not so easy at all when it comes to being gay, because that is not something that can be detected right away, or at all, in a person's appearance. For instance, for all your pride in being gay, you don't look gay in any respect, going by those "Ask Andrew Anything" video shots, or like much of anything else unless it would be a grizzled old Welsh coal miner with his gray beard dyed black, freshly emerged from another day's work in the pits, with a harried, exhausted wife and 10 kids at home.
So I think that, for all your gratitude in Obama's having finally come around to taking that stand without any equivocation, you and Newsweek could at least have done him the common courtesy of asking him first if he wanted to be called a "gay President," even though I realize that common courtesy may not be a familiar concept to you.
Finally, did I detect a bit of guilts in how you cited that cover on The Dish? You must've suspected an inch or two down deep that what you did wasn't right, because you said nothing in defense and instead continued your complete cop-out by passing the reader off to a video of the Newsweek lady being interviewed, during which she, mostly likely also realizing that she had only two extremely weak legs to stand on, also copped out, by saying little that made sense and that she did it mainly because she had your okay.
You all ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves in your hunt for pure sensationalism instead of using ordinary common sense, especially of how things go in American life, and you should realize that a cover as dumb as this has a much bigger chance of ultimately hurting Obama in this campaign than it has of helping him., because there are more people who regardless of all, still don't think that being gay is all that cool. They are not about to sell all the attractions of women that short. You say it's an orientation and not a choice, but to most it's still an orientation too close to the edge of the cliff for comfort. You can be comfortable with it all you want but it could not have been helpful to try to drag the President over there with you.
Or were you thinking that, with Obama having already been called so many other completely absurd things, that being called this for a good cause couldn't hurt anything? But that still doesn't fly.
You and Newsweek are to be roundly condemned for your surpassingly stupid cover crowing in big letters that B. Obama is America's first gay President, without any qualification whatsoever. That designation is not only dumb, but also it is false, unless you have access to private information about the President's sexual leanings that nobody else except him has. Did you clear this with the President before you talked to the Newsweek editors? I'm guessing the answer is no, because I can't believe that he is at all happy with being called "gay." By all accounts he has been happily married to a nice woman, not a man, for many years, and he has apparently had no problem with bodily cooperating with her in producing two daughters and raising them.
I understand how you can be so deeply committed to the legitimacy of being gay and of gay marriage. But in your complete obsession with being gay, you don't seem to have understood that with people who are not gay, there can be a big difference between supporting marriage equality and being thought of as being gay.
You reasoned that the cover wording was all right and even catchy and apt, because of the thing of Bill Clinton being called the "first black President." But there's a big difference there, too, that may not have occurred to you, though it should've been all too visible. Clinton is obviously not a so-called "black" person and has never claimed to be. So the subtlety of that designation is easy to see in his case. It's not so easy at all when it comes to being gay, because that is not something that can be detected right away, or at all, in a person's appearance. For instance, for all your pride in being gay, you don't look gay in any respect, going by those "Ask Andrew Anything" video shots, or like much of anything else unless it would be a grizzled old Welsh coal miner with his gray beard dyed black, freshly emerged from another day's work in the pits, with a harried, exhausted wife and 10 kids at home.
So I think that, for all your gratitude in Obama's having finally come around to taking that stand without any equivocation, you and Newsweek could at least have done him the common courtesy of asking him first if he wanted to be called a "gay President," even though I realize that common courtesy may not be a familiar concept to you.
Finally, did I detect a bit of guilts in how you cited that cover on The Dish? You must've suspected an inch or two down deep that what you did wasn't right, because you said nothing in defense and instead continued your complete cop-out by passing the reader off to a video of the Newsweek lady being interviewed, during which she, mostly likely also realizing that she had only two extremely weak legs to stand on, also copped out, by saying little that made sense and that she did it mainly because she had your okay.
You all ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves in your hunt for pure sensationalism instead of using ordinary common sense, especially of how things go in American life, and you should realize that a cover as dumb as this has a much bigger chance of ultimately hurting Obama in this campaign than it has of helping him., because there are more people who regardless of all, still don't think that being gay is all that cool. They are not about to sell all the attractions of women that short. You say it's an orientation and not a choice, but to most it's still an orientation too close to the edge of the cliff for comfort. You can be comfortable with it all you want but it could not have been helpful to try to drag the President over there with you.
Or were you thinking that, with Obama having already been called so many other completely absurd things, that being called this for a good cause couldn't hurt anything? But that still doesn't fly.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 1:13 AM
1 Comments:
I have a lot to say about this post AND the last one. All are complimentary. But it has NOT been a great day. I am not certain I will make it back with comments, but I wanted to let you know my thoughts are with you.
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