Here's a New York story of interest to normal Americans that, so far, doesn't seem to be getting much play in the Heartland or even in the Times, for that matter. I'm sure, though, that the right people in New York are going to be hearing a lot about it, so it might be a good idea for us folks of absolutely no importance to hear about it, too.

Comrade Hillary is beating up on her opponent in the senatorial campaign, Rick Lazio, on account of his planned nonappearance at tomorrow's Gay Pride Parade in New York. And while there's no doubt that Hillary wears the oysters while Bill concentrates on the other part of the family's male equipment, she doesn't really need all that testosterone in this case. No one of importance is criticizing her for criticizing Lazio. Republican hero Lazio needs to find some of that increasingly rare male hormone, though. He says he can't march in the homosexual parade ... but only because of a scheduling conflict. Not exactly a new profile in courage, there, Rick. And that's not all. According to Fox News, "Lazio's campaign says he's long supported causes important to the gay community." (Fox gave the story a couple of minutes, more than I've seen anywhere else out here in the cornfields.)

As if to demonstrate how secure a place sodomism now occupies in the political mainstream, even Fox spun the story as showing Lazio in "an uncomfortable spotlight," adding that he's "snubbing" the homosexuals. A Fox reporter explained that Lazio "must walk a sensitive line, running as a moderate without alienating his conservative supporters, who make up his base. It is a delicate balance, reinforced by his not marching while still attempting to show that he is sympathetic to the gay community."

That's where we're at, if anybody still has any question about it. George W. Bush immersed himself in boiling water by talking to conservative Christians at Bob Jones University and failing to order South Carolinians to take down their Battle Flag. More recently, as in today, the Black Panthers' Minister of Information, Mr. "Quanell X," was able to refer to the Negro executed in Texas yesterday as "Brother Gary Graham" and not be called on it, even by his Fox News interviewer, although I've heard no one bother to deny that Graham raped and terrorized a white woman and blew apart a white man's leg with a shotgun. Mr. X himself stipulated that Brother Graham committed "some" of the crimes of which he was accused. Just invert the racial component — imagine a Klan spokesman referring to James Byrd's killer (one of three, according to the state) as "Brother Lawrence Brewer" — and you'd have a fine example of what the Red Guards call hate speech.

At the same time, in order to protect his credentials as a moderate,  Rick Lazio has to frantically spin, finesse, and massage his failure to march in a homosexual parade!

***

According to Fox, the annual parade is a "grand and gaudy spectacle." Some years ago when I was working on the newsdesk of a Midwestern daily paper, our Washington correspondent — a person who was, er, ah, quite sympathetic, let us say, to the "gay community" — filed an account of a parallel event in D.C. that was replete with gentle, earnest, fun-loving folks in colorfully creative costumes taking pride in their oneness, mourning their fallen martyrs, and looking forward to a shining, glorious future of peace, justice, and dignity. You get the picture.

At the same time, there fell into my hands a samizdat account — from a source I trusted a lot more — that painted another picture, short on grandness but long on gaudiness. That's if you consider merely "gaudy" such things as violently pornographic slanders against Christianity and Christians, threats of HIV terrorism, the vilest imaginable gutter ravings, simulated sexual acts, psycho-style grimacing and cavorting, Man-Boy Love propaganda, substantial nudity, and, in general, a wild vomiting of hatred and resentment at anything that normal folks would consider good and decent. A few thousand samizdat readers nationwide got that picture. Some 60,000 newspaper readers in Northeast Indiana got the first picture.

What will the picture be like tomorrow? Maybe this year's New York parade will be dominated by sweet, peaceful lesbians in Birkenstocks strumming guitars and warbling folkish anthems, but somehow I doubt it.

The homosexual activists are saying it's just terrible that Lazio won't be at the parade. They say his absence shows he'd be a bad senator, so far as they and their agenda are concerned. Are we to suppose that if he did appear they'd consider supporting him instead of Hillary? Go ahead and buy that bridge. So why is it so hard for Lazio to summon any of that high-test testo and tell 'em that he'd just as soon go on a ten-mile swim in the sewers?

It's got to be those soccer moms and dads, don't you think? If Minitrue characterizes Lazio as "anti-gay" or "homophobic," he'll lose a few thousand sodomist votes, most of which he'll lose anyway, but he'll also risk losing several million soccerite votes that are actually up for grabs. You know the soccerites. They're the folks who loll around in their recliners channel-surfing as Red Guards in the state schools ram the sodomist gospel down the throats of their little kids. Their own heads have been crammed full of highly selective and tendentious fantasies about sensitivity, diversity, and egalitarianism. It's the deracination of the soccerites that prevents Republicans of 2000, such as Lazio, from sounding anything like Republicans of 1960. (And Republicans of 1960 were no great shakes.)

I know things are bad, but I'm not sure how bad. Fox says it's going to cover tomorrow's parade. If the network is better at finding its own go-juice than Lazio is at finding his, and if the parade does resemble yesteryear's freak-show in Washington, will the soccerites blink or not? Will they have — mercy, save us! — a New Thought about the spectacle and what it signifies? Or will they just chortle at its "cuteness" before surfing off to catch the latest edition of HBO's "Real Sex"? I'm keeping my money in my pocket.

June 24, 2000

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