On behalf of all decent Minnesotans, I apologize for the recent comments of native son and NPR luminary Garrison Keillor regarding gay parents. Here’s a direct quote from his piece in Salon:
The country has come to accept stereotypical gay men—sardonic fellows with fussy hair who live in over-decorated apartments with a striped sofa and a small weird dog and who worship campy performers and go in for flamboyance now and then themselves. If they want to be accepted as couples and daddies, however, the flamboyance may have to be brought under control.
Parents are supposed to stand in back and not wear chartreuse pants and
black polka-dot shirts. That’s for the kids. It’s their show.[emphasis added]
Dan Savage goes all kinds of ballistic on Keillor’s ass, and rightfully so. Keillor may have some clever things to say about the president, but bigoted statements from a liberal are just as inexcusable as anything uttered by James Dobson or Ann Coulter. I think this is further evidence in support of my theory that the sooner the Boomer generation packs itself off to Arizona and Florida for endless days of golf and salsa dancing lessons, the better off this country will be.
And now I have yet another reason not to listen to Keillor’s creaky radio show.
The comment is absolutely bigoted about gay parents, but it’s also just a bizarre thing to say about parents in general. My taste in clothes and music and such didn’t change just because I had a kid or two, and I certainly don’t feel like I have to “stand in the back” at all times to be a real parent. Keillor has little kids–that clearly doesn’t keep him from performing, singing, playing characters, taking the spotlight befor an audience every week.
It has nothing to do with being bigoted. It’s simply true. The country does accept flambloyant gays because they are cute, cuddly, friendly, and oh so not threatening at all. Its when gays look and act like everyone else that they become a huge threat to the heterosexual majority because then they seem normal and how on earth could gay be normal, right?. The host of Prairie Dog Companion was correct in what he said. Flamboyance is used as a crutch by society at large. Every gay out there should be highly insulted by Will and Grace and the idea that gays are only acceptable if they act goofy and nonthreatening.
BTW, Prairie “Home” companion is a creaky show.
That whole column is crap. It’s poorly written, has no point, and he ends up sounding like a complete jackass. It makes no sense. The bigotry against gays is obvious, but the second half is just as disturbing – the bit about seeing the kids at school is xenophobic.
The whole thing is embarrassing to Minnesotans and Democrats.
This country doesn’t accept gays, period. Even flamboyant gays don’t have equal rights.
What’s wrong with Keillor? He wrote an “apology” on his site saying that his column was satire. Has he lost his mind? His apology basically says that “hey, I’m not a bigot, I know gay people!” and “if you’re too dumb to get my humor, that’s your problem!”. Maybe it’s some desperate plea for attention, or perhaps he doesn’t realize what a bad writer he’s become. I have trouble believing he’s so stupid that he doesn’t know his column would anger people.