How gay is too gay? | Relign | The Guardian

Contents:

• TODAY GAYS: HOW GAY IS TOO GAY?
• HOW GAY IS TOO GAY?
• HOW GAY IS TOO GAY? STEVE COOGAN'S IAL HOME ACCED OF STEREOTYPG
• AM I GAY?
• TOO STRAIGHT TO BE GAY, TOO GAY TO BE STRAIGHT
• CANNED CKTAIL ‘GAY WATER’ AIMS TO SH ON BUD LIGHT’S DYLAN MULVANEY DISASTER
• TOO GAY
• HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY
• IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND
• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE GAY? DEFN AND MEANG OF GAY

TODAY GAYS: HOW GAY IS TOO GAY?

There's a porn star who ntu to be too gay, bisexual softball players who aren't gay enough, and a celebry who is about to reveal jt how gay they are.

Brent Corrigan: Too Gay (for Yale)'s get on the Yale private jet here (you know they have one) and fly over to San Francis, where a big bi brouhaha is boilg.

HOW GAY IS TOO GAY?

Acrdg to the Seattle Tim, three bisexual men are sug the North Amerin Gay Amatr Athletic Alliance claimg that they were banned om participatg the Gay Softball World Seri (this is a thg) bee they're only bi, not like Gay gay. A Ccible-que tribunal was formed and the followg happened:Each of the three platiffs was lled to a nference room ont of more than 25 people, and was asked "personal and tsive qutns" about his sexual attractns and sir, purportedly to terme if the player was heterosexual or gay, the lawsu my!

"In the end the tribunal found the men "nongay" and had them prsed unr rocks like Gil Corey stripped their team of their send-place posn and remend a one year ban for all three men. The Vatin published a new edict on s posn on prits and homosexualy, one approved by the new pope, and the answer to all the qutns, emerg, is "y" Vatin's document stat that ndidat for the prithood wh "ep-seated homosexual tennci" and those who actively support "gay culture" need not apply, on the basis ( precis) that they are past savg.

HOW GAY IS TOO GAY? STEVE COOGAN'S IAL HOME ACCED OF STEREOTYPG

But ndidat who have suffered only a "transory problem" wh gayns need not give up hope of a place the semary, jt so long as three years have passed between them "overg" the "problem" and them enterg the short, young prits may have a closet, and they may once have peered out of the keyhole, or even stepped out for a moment, but om now on, the closet door mt rema tight shut.

Or, to put another way, homosexualy is very much like smokg - a few years off the fags, and you're all nice and pure is no mentn, this document, of the 30-50% of prits already the church who are claimed (by Catholic gay rights mpaigners, but still) to be gay. And go whout sayg that while transory problems wh gayns may, wh time, be acceptable, celibacy remas a strict requirement for all prits, and gayns general remas un-OK for lay Catholics.

) But then the Catholic church has never been too ncerned wh groups such as Stonewall and Qut, jt very ncerned ed - or so Dowd and others claim - wh bums on seats the velopg world, where gay rights tend not to be much of a wner the Catholic fah is far om the only church to have e over all hot and bothered at the thought of man-on-man actn.

AM I GAY?

And is far om the only church to have tied self to elaborate knots s efforts to expla whatever cur posn has chosen to adopt on the subject, takg to acunt all relevant scriptur and the social mor of the fact, this untry at least, n be argued that the major religns between them nstute the last great bastn of official homophobia. As David Allison of Outrage!, another gay rights group, puts : "The church have stood agast every form of social progrs sce the year dot.

"In Ameri, acrdg to Chris Barron, polil director of Log Cab, a gay and lbian Republin anisatn, gay rights the US "lag behd most of Europe". Gay marriag are still only possible a few areas and, of urse, mpaigners have the famo "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy the armed forc to foc their ire on.

TOO STRAIGHT TO BE GAY, TOO GAY TO BE STRAIGHT

This supposedly enlightened policy has led, Barron says, to about 10, 000 discharg sce was first troduced this untry, though, official homophobia of the sort once practised by stutns such as the Foreign Office - which refed gay jobseekers on the basis that they might be blackmailed, and bis, how on earth would one seat their boyiends at a dner party? The army may have odd ias about broomsticks, but the navy homosexualy has long been "practilly pulsory", he says, and those charge do seem to be dog their b for equaly.

Same-sex civil marriage servic may not be perfect eher, but at least gay upl are now to be allowed some sort of legal protectn. In the church, official bodi still talk wh straight fac about homosexualy as a "tenncy", and most of them are still dancg, gorily dnken fashn, wh their l on gayns, and how gay is OK, and whether prits should be allowed to be as gay - or ls gay, or even more gay - than lay the Anglin church.

The Reverend Mart Reynolds, a Welsh prit who is gay and is engaged to be married to a man (wh whom he has a foster child), is our gui to the subject. Acrdg to him, the l, as of today, are th: England, a vir may be gay, and may have a gay partner, and they may live the virage together.

CANNED CKTAIL ‘GAY WATER’ AIMS TO SH ON BUD LIGHT’S DYLAN MULVANEY DISASTER

"That's a very good qutn, " says Wal, however, as the Welsh bishops ma clear only last week, gay prits will be ee not only to marry but to "olic". You n be very gay ed and an Anglin prit Stland, Wal and some parts of Ireland, but only que gay and an Anglin prit gay is too gay Judaism? In the orthodox branch of the church, even a ty b gay n be too gay, although one may fd tertg (anonymo) piec on the ter by men purportg to be gay orthodox rabbis.

TOO GAY

But more liberal branch of the fah, you n be very gay, whether you are a lay person or a Danny Rich is the chief executive of an anisatn lled Liberal Judaism, which today, as happens, publish a lurgy formally givg the thumbs-up to same-sex marriage ceremoni s synagogu - once the upl have signed the civil partnership register. There are gay rabbis, but, Rich says, "they don't have a policy on same-sex marriag" as one om Queer Jihad was replyg to msag yterday, but is probably fair to say that the number of openly gay imams this untry may be unted on one hand, and that many Mlim groups are as open about their homophobia as is the Catholic church. While some Hd are as proudly anti- gay as their unterparts other church, accepted Hdu relig texts do not explicly mentn homosexualy at all and, acrdg to Wikipedia, "to this day morn India there are hijras, transgenred men who have sex wh men.

”As happens, that oversight is far om the only sore spot the 52-year-old has relatn to his edy, which stars Steve Coogan and Pl Rudd as a gay uple Santa Fe who sudnly fd themselv parents of a 10-year-old boy (Jack Gore)’s wboy-hat-wearg, whe-we-swillg celebry chef Erasm – and to a lser extent his TV producer partner Pl (Rudd) – have been rid some circl as Birdge-style stereotyp that uld set the e of same-sex equaly back cricism has e om straight and gay people, adms Flemg, and hurts bee while the film is clearly a work of fictn draws heavily om his own Pl, Flemg was a relatnship wh a man who had a child om a heterosexual relatnship (the boy the movie is Erasm’ grandson). Like Erasm, he n be rather flamboyant at Coogan (left) as Erasm and Pl Rudd as Pl Andrew Flemg's edy Ial In“I prefer chardonnay to beer, I have a picture of myself wh Liza Mnelli, I’ve worn chaps to dner, ” he says, cg three of the film’s more overt markers of “gayns”.

HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY

Havg such out-there leads “was liberate”, he says, an antidote of sorts to a different type of gay stereotype that has emerged recent years. ”Jack Gore (left), as Bill, and Rudd Ial Home, which has drawn cricism om straight and gay InIt’s certaly not the way Pl and Erasm behave. They have a luxur ranch New Mexi, eat and drk and travel fabuloly, dabble spirualism and yoga, host r and ocsnally dg-fuelled dner parti, and have a prehensive llectn of gay porn movi on DVD, most of them hilar riffs on the tl and subject matter of mastream Hollywood films (Bareback Mounta hardly even unts sce is, as Erasm nces, merely a gay-themed play on a gay-themed movie) relatnship, though, is far om rosy.

”Much has changed sce Flemg first put a gay character on screen, his 1994 movie Threome, which The Good Wife’s Josh Charl played a llege stunt who begs to look at his roommate (Stephen Baldw) wh more than mere amic tert even while he’s volved wh a female roomie (Lara Flynn Boyle). “I remember screeng that movie middle Ameri and ma people very unfortable to have a gay character checkg out a guy’s ass, ” he untry’s attus to sexualy have evolved greatly sce then, of urse. Gay upl ed to feel safe beg out only ci such as New York, San Francis or LA, but now the plac where they need to be ut are the exceptn.

IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND

“It was a real stggle to make, took a long time and once was ma I alt wh a lot of weird – I have to say homophobic – reactns to .

”Amerin wrer-director Andrew Flemg says 'beg openly gay is a polil act' spects the qutn stemmed om the fact Erasm and Pl “are not exactly mol cizens. “There were a few scen [ the screenplay] that had a whiff of a polemic them, that were about me suggtg the ia of fightg homophobia. Many health re and mental health anizatns foced on the lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr muny also offer substance e treatment or may be able to provi rmatn about lol rourc.

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE GAY? DEFN AND MEANG OF GAY

And rearch has shown that gay men and other men who have sex wh men experience timate partner vlence at a higher rate than do other men. A lack of shelters and other facili equipped to offer gay men a safe, supportive place to get help also may make dntg to seek re. Gay - While this adjective has historilly scribed men who are attracted to other men, the term now is ed to refer to anyone who experienc romantic, emotnal, or physil attractn to people of the same genr.