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First of all, a word of warning. The news about the New Hampshire marriage bill is in the next story. But be patient. We’ll get to it in due time.
I’m actually starting this column a couple of days ahead of schedule. Why, you query? Because I was reading about a toad extermination festival in Queensland, Australia called “Toad Day Out,” where people collected live cane toads to be euthanized during a day-long family-friendly celebration held in various towns around the area. I gather these poisonous toads have become the number one Queensland pest, and even the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals gave the killing spree a thumbs up. The toads, by the way, were deliberately imported in the 1930s to get rid of some beetles in the sugar cane fields, but guess what? The toads couldn’t jump high enough to catch the beetles! Stupid toads.
Anyway, normally I would have just made a note about this topic and waited until my deadline approached, but I could not stop myself from immediately passing along this snippet from the Associated Press article:
“In Cairns, more than 100 people turned up at a collection point with around 1,000 toads, Toad Day Out organizer Lisa Ahrens said. The biggest was 5 inches (13 centimeters) long, weighed half a pound (290 grams) - and had a fifth leg growing out of its chest.
“There was a tussle over the creatures’ corpses between a waste management plant and a local taxidermist. But in the end, Ahrens said, a compromise was struck - the taxidermists stripped off the animals’ skins, and the rest of the remains went to the plant to be turned into compost for cane farmers.
“’So everybody’s happy!’ Ahrens said with a laugh.”
You can see why I couldn’t wait two days to present these haunting images. The deformed, doomed amphibian. The rivals “tussling” for the remains.
The bubbly Ahrens, and the general surrealism of the scene, captured so beautifully in the final quotation by the deft wordsmith at the Associated Press.
I can see Ahrens. I can hear her Queensland accent. I can almost picture the fellow from the waste management plant and the taxidermist.
“Look ‘ere, Mate. You can ‘ave the insides and we’ll have a go at the skins and such. Lisa? Is that alright by you?”
“That’s lovely, Tim. I think that’s the perfect solution. Andrew?”
“Fine by me.”
“Then it’s settled!” (Lisa Ahrens claps her hands together under her chin and stands for an instant as if in prayer, a cheerful smile lighting up her face.
At the collection station, Tim gently examines the toad corpse, turning its grotesque fifth leg from side to side in fascination while Andrew looks on with a frown. Fade to black.) Peaceful Resolution Ends Conflict at Australian Toad Massacre
Now I’m kind of on a roll, although I haven’t done any research or anything. Also, I am always supposed to compose a “serious” headline for the first item in my column, and by rights it should have something to do with our official subject, GLBT news. That’s why I often toss a small scrap of actual news into the initial section and link the headline to said scrap.
But I don’t want to dilute the rich ingredients of the toad story with extraneous material. Look. I’ll write about same-sex marriage in this section, put a marriage headline on the first story and write the toad headline on this one. No one will even notice!
I just got a note from a friend of mine with ties to influential politicians in New Hampshire. The house passed a same-sex marriage bill last Thursday or Friday, and my source tells me the vote in the state senate will be close. If the bill passes, it faces a governor who does not support marriage rights, but who has not (yet) threatened a veto.
Yes, yes. We had the same scenario in Vermont, where Governor Jim Douglas announced he will indeed veto a marriage bill if it emerges, as expected, from the Sap State house in coming days. Vermont’s bill passed the state senate 26-4 the other day, and we are all hoping that support in the house will be large enough to override Jimwit’s red ink. I believe that means we need 100 out of 150 house members to pass the bill and subsequently override the veto. Activists at freedom to marry Vermont have issued a call to arms.
And for the record, an email from uber lawyer Evan Wolfson informs us that Sweden’s parliament has just voted overwhelmingly to legalize marriage.
Yay! Or as we say in Stockholm, Hurra! (I looked that up.) No Hurry!
I return to our colloquy on Wednesday, April Fool’s Day. I’m not a practical joker as a rule, but it occurs to me that in a few hours I can send my editor a news column from last year with a note saying that I am running off to a three-hour dental appointment and will talk to her later. Then I’ll turn off my phone!
I am laughing out loud at the prospect of this devilish hijink. Hey Kim, since the joke will be concluded by the time you read this, please share with us your reaction to my amusing prank. (Editor’s reply, please.) (Editor: Ha Ha Ha!!! Ha Ha Ha!!!)
Moving along to our next topic, I read that Defense Secretary Gates told a Sunday talk show audience that the question of whether to end the ban on openly gay military service is a matter to be “kicked on down the road.” Let me get the exact quote.
“We have a lot on our plates right now,” he told Fox News Sunday. “Let’s push that one down the road a little bit.”
Gates’ comment is right in line with the friendly indifference we’ve seen from the administration thus far, where the plan to deal with Don’t Ask Don’t Tell seems to involve setting up a commission at some point, and then possibly recommending legislative action after that. It’s not just “down the road a little bit,” it’s a meandering two-year journey in Granddad’s old Buick LeSabre at 35 mph with the top down. Kinda sounds like fun unless you’re on active duty trying to defend your country and living a miserable lie at the same time. Monkey Shines
I guess what really bothers me is the notion that addressing gay civil rights is a time-consuming distraction that must be shelved while the country deals with the economy and foreign wars. “There are more important issues facing the nation at the moment!” Well, yes and no. Is the war in Afghanistan “more important” than civil rights? That’s like asking whether the strategic memo that’s due tomorrow is “more important” than the company’s nondiscrimination policy.
(Editor: Or, whether turning in a fake column which eats up an hour of valuable production time on deadline day can be classified as an “amusing prank.”)
Both are essential to the firm, and complex agendas cannot be managed in a linear fashion. Large organizations cannot do one thing at a time, crossing policy items off an orderly list.
Second, ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell or repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, are acts of Congress. I just spent one minute checking out some of this year’s Congressional votes, and the second one I stumbled upon was the Captive Primate Safety Act, “a measure to treat nonhuman primate species as prohibited wildlife species” under the Lacey Act Amendments of 1981. Seriously. The bill passed the House 323 to 95 about six weeks ago, and I’m guessing it was in response to the woman who got mauled by her chimp.
So please don’t tell me that Congress is too busy running the country to be sidetracked by inconsequential issues like gay rights. A chimp goes ballistic and Congress jumps right into action to outlaw pet monkeys. Congress, like Gates, is simply unwilling to take action on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, or any other gay bill for that matter. I’m not surprised, but I’m sick of hearing that the continual delay is simply a matter of setting priorities. Bull. Family Values
Speaking of Congress and gay rights, how would you like to be in the position of Shirley Tan, her partner of 23 years Jay Mercado, and their two 12-year-old twin sons? According to the San Jose Mercury News, the family was awakened at their Pacifica home on Jan. 28 by immigration officials, who handcuffed Tan and scheduled her for deportation April 3. That’s Friday.
Tan, 43, had applied for asylum in the United States back in 1995 after being shot by a relative in her home country. Mercado was also born in the Philippines, but is a naturalized U.S. citizen. The women believed that the asylum claim was still pending, but apparently the petition was denied in 2002, and it took authorities seven years to catch up with the dangerous renegades. Now, unbelievably, the family will be split apart, Tan will travel halfway around the world all alone, her sons will lose their mother and Mercado will lose her spouse.
Both California senators have risen to Tan’s defense, and San Mateo congresswoman Jackie Speier technically has the power to make Tan an exception to the law. I hope she does, but meanwhile the bill that would prevent these human tragedies, the Uniting American Families Act, continues to languish.
I suppose Congress has many more important issues on its plate at the moment. She Won’t Be Fooled Again
What next? What’s on our communal news “plate” as we turn the bend into the home stretch of our column?
Oh wait! I’m going to send the “wrong news file” right now. Done! I sent the news from one year ago, and she better damn well notice. Aha! Instant satisfaction! She’s sent me an email, but I’m not going to open it because she can check if I’ve read her message. So now my phone is off and I’m not responding to email!
How long should I torment her? A little while longer, I think.
Meanwhile, you should know that a lesbian has been elected Mayor of Zurich, joining the growing club of gay mayors of European cities, specifically those of Paris, Berlin and Hamburg. Having a gay mayor is clearly all the rage on The Continent, which could mean that we’ll see the fad play out in the United States in about five years, right? Chicago, New York, Houston… get ready to get down!
Mayor Corine Mauch, 49, played bass with two bands in the 1990s, The Hoover, and Fallacy (the Advocate reports).
Oh, I’m laughing out loud again. Kim just sent me another email, headlined: “URGENT.” Why do I find this adolescent gag so funny! I turned my phone back on and find I have two voice mail messages! Let’s listen.
“Hi, Ann. Please call me as soon as you hear this. It’s very urgent, very, very urgent. OK, thank you.”
“Ann ,you sent me a column from last year. Please call me. Please send me the right column. Oh. OK, bye.”
And a third message arrived while I was listening. “Urgent call me instantly.”
OK, then she called into my phone while I was checking messages so I took pity on her and answered, laughing so much I could barely articulate the welcome punch line “April Fools!” Apparently she had already called my wife at work, who had the idea to call the neighbors so they could stop me from going to the dentist. Sure enough, Mel’s message beeped through, and I had to call her back to keep the neighbors from getting involved.
It’s over now. And so is our column! What fun it all was!
Before we go, you should know that the Vermont House will hold its marriage vote on Thursday, so by the time you read this we should have a clear picture of the Maple State machinations. And the highest court of New York, the Court of Appeals, has agreed to rule on whether same-sex marriages are recognized in the Empire State. At least two appellate courts have already said yes to that question, as has the governor and several state officials. But the Court of Appeals has ducked the issue until now, leading Bay Times analysts to assume that matter was resolved. Guess not.
Finally, another major GLBT legal issue is heading into the federal courts as we go to press. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, not the most liberal bench, has agreed to review the question of whether Louisiana is constitutionally obliged to issue a revised birth certificate to a child who was adopted by two men. I suspect this interesting case will be a hot topic in this column as time goes by. -arostow@aol.com
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