The 300 were gay

Last week, The United States' top military officer, General Peter Pace, came out against gays in the military. "I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral," he said, "and that we should not condone immoral acts."

Note to General Pace: Some of the fiercest fighters in military history were gay.

Anyone with a college-level knowledge of Greek history should know that the Spartan Army -- that same Spartan Army celebrated in Warner Bros.' "300" -- was not only a largely gay force, but encouraged homosexual relations among soldiers. Usually, such romance concerned an older mentor and a younger boy.

Wikipedia:

The lover was responsible for the boy's training...The Spartans, claims Athenaeus, sacrificed to Eros (the god of love) before every battle: "Thus the Lacedaemonians (i.e. Spartans) offer preliminary sacrifices to Eros before the troops are drawn up in battle-line, because they think that their safe return and victory depend upon the friendship of the men drawn up."

Now, to state the obvious, we're not condoning sex between men and boys (just as we're not encouraging the abandonment of weak babies in the wilderness, another Spartan societal norm). But to General Pace's point, not only is homosexuality in the military not a bad thing, it was the cornerstone of one of the most powerful fighting forces ever known.

Of course, this historical detail did not make it into Warner Bros.' "300." But that's not what bothered many gay bloggers.

Writing on After Elton.com prior to the film's release, Joe Palmer and François Peneaud say the real issue isn't that these same-sex practices weren't recognized in the film. They understand that "This is an action-adventure comic and movie aimed at young straight men, meant to pile up book sales and box-office cash by piling up dead bodies as graphically and artistically as possible."

The real problem is the inversion of historical fact.

After Elton:

Hot, shirtless, muscle-bound actors aside...gay history has been erased from 300 and replaced with negative stereotypes.

The first is the way the (evil) Persian king Xerxes is portrayed in the graphic novel. Continuing a shameful tradition of Persians as perverts, Miller gives us a king who's all piercings and useless fashion accessories, his head and faced shaved, combining to create an air of effeminacy. In comparison, (Spartan King) Leonidas is hypermasculine and appears to be stereotypically straight, with broad shoulders and a full beard and mustache.

As seen in this photo taken from 300 promotional materials, Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is a jewel-clad effete sporting what appear to be manicured nails and plucked eyebrows. His hands, adorned with gold rings on every finger, lie suggestively on the shoulders of King Leonidas (Gerard Butler), a hirsute, rough-hewn man who looks every bit the opposite of Xerxes.

Funny then that, as Deadline Hollywood Daily's Nikki Finke reported yesterday, "one of the biggest audiences for Warner Bros.' 300 is gay men."

Why?

Even with negative stereotypes and no explicit gay sex scenes, shirtless, violent men with "8-pack abs" are "Yummy," she says.

Romeo and Juliet Beyotch, Sophemore Cheerleader

- - - -

Verona High's evening study hall.

ROMEO: Her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

JULIET: Shut up, retard. You get near my cheek and I'll rip your airy region out.

ROMEO: She speaks.
O, speak again, bright angel, for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,
As is a wingèd messenger of heaven ...

JULIET: I said shut up, retard. You smell like Doritos. And do you mind sitting a little further away? I can feel your stupid Dorito breath on my face.

ROMEO: Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

JULIET: Listen, Creepoid, my older brother's a linebacker on the varsity squad—and he just loves to beat up the creepoids that bother me.

ROMEO: I take thee at thy word!

JULIET: I know you: Hienkles, right? Your sister's a bitch. Did you know that, Nacho Breath? You're related to a walrus-faced ho sack.

ROMEO: My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself
Because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I it written, I would tear the word.

JULIET: Whatevs. Don't you play tuba in the stupid jazz band, or something even gayer, like the oboe?

ROMEO: Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.

JULIET: You're weirding me out, Cheese 'Stache. And you better not be the sicko that's been peeking into my bedroom window—my dad and brothers are going to crunch the cookies out of that guy.

ROMEO: Thy kinsmen are no stop to me.

JULIET: OK. Let me just explain something: My older brother benches, like, 325—in his sleep. With the flu. Plus, my dad has a collection of crazy-sharp Japanese swords that he got from the emperor or somebody. Like 15 of them.

ROMEO: Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than 20 of their swords.

JULIET: My brothers are going to shit honey over this. You know it's tough playing the oboe with broken thumbs, don't you?

ROMEO: My life were better ended by their hate
Than death proroguèd, wanting of thy love.

JULIET: Jeez, could your fingernails be any longer? You disgust me. Go away.

ROMEO: Wert thou as far
As that vast shore washed with the farthest sea,
I should adventure for such merchandise.

JULIET: Shut up. And why is your hair so greasy? God, you're grosser than a bag of bear shit. Go tell Blake to come over here. And move to where I can't smell your corn chips and hair juice.

ROMEO: O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?

JULIET: Seriously, what do you want to leave me alone?

ROMEO: Th' exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.

JULIET: OK ... Fine.
I ...
I ... love you.
... Not.
God, you're so stupid and gross.
You dumb oboe player.

ROMEO: Wouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?

JULIET: Because your fingers are orange,
And you smell like fake cheese.
How many bags of Doritos did you eat? Like 10?
Oh, my God! Are you crying?
What are you crying for, you stupid baby?
Hey, Blake! Blake, listen:
Hienkles sounds just like a blubbering walrus.

Arrf, arrf, arrf.
Arrf, arrf, arrf.

OK, that's enough—
It's not really funny anymore.
Jeez, you know, even for a stalker, you're really emotional. Now here: shut up and do my civics homework.

ROMEO: O blessèd, blessèd night! I am afeard,
Being in night, all this is but a dream,
Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.

JULIET: I said shut up, retard.

Exeunt.

Jane Eyre runs for president.

- - - -

I am challenged at the Iowa caucuses to endorse gay marriage as a sacred institution. Of course I believe it, but how can they make me say so when they know the political cost it will exact? Hot tears of rage stream down my scarlet face.

In New Hampshire, I endure the grandiose posturing of Chris Matthews so I can get an interview on MSNBC. What a blowhard the man is! Who, man or woman, would not find his pompous questions exasperating? I curl my fists into tiny balls beneath the interview table.

There comes a time, dear reader, when a woman of high conscience must make her feelings plain. Today, in Ohio, I came out strongly for government support of stem-cell research.

I am for an increase in the minimum wage. I believe the government should negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower the cost of prescription drugs. I am curious as to why there are not more books of quality in the nation's public libraries. I have taken fewer liberties on the campaign trail than others have, surely, but this small conservatism is a wise choice for a woman of my stature in a fight to gain the highest office in the land.

Reader, take this information and hold it to your heart. It is between us. I am in love with the person who will likely be my running mate, the future vice president. He is a young senator from Illinois with a handsome countenance, the most remarkable pedigree, and an unfortunate middle name. What ever shall I do!

I am determined not to allow Senator McCain, of the state of Arizona, to escape responsibility for the abandonment of his principles. My campaign has released a list of talking points. The main theme is that McCain will say anything to get elected.

We are in the "swing" states. Curious nomenclature these Americans use. I sometimes think language is not their strong suit. Plans for the convention are coming along. My senator looks well before the crowds. Handsome, sure of himself, and quite tall. I do quite like him. We make a pair.

In other matters, a midnight rendezvous with the young senator has left me flushed. So dizzy was I, it's a wonder I made it back to my room. Today, I could barely keep my mind on my stump speech. The campaign is in constant motion. Everything is a blur. Our consultants tell us Georgia and Florida are well in hand.

In South Carolina, my nemesis McCain makes an issue of my lack of military service. He appears oblivious to the fact that 19th-century English women were prohibited from military service. So I ask him, "If I have no military experience, what fault is that of mine?" Does he not see the injustice of his charge, at least as it relates to me? Truly, a young woman of courage has few friends in this world.

The papers today have released a secret the senator and I have shared, and our advisers fear it imperils our campaign. The senator and I, it has been revealed, both speak French, and sometimes converse in that language. What of it? Is this all the opposition has? I have told my senator not to worry. Common sense will, in the end, prevail.

Dear reader, it has been a whirlwind! Never have I known any task to be so arduous, or so prolonged. But New York has put us over the top. To my mind, this is just according to plan. The young senator and I may now plan our convention. The event will be more a coronation than a nomination, but such is the trend, and I see no harm in following it.

There will be time enough for change, dear reader. Fret not about your little Jane.

Oh, we are to win, dear reader, we are to win! I can sense it in my heart. McCain is too old. The campaign has scarcely begun and already he is faltering. We're up by three points, and our lead can only grow. It is a new era in American politics. The permanent Republican majority is truly cooked, and I will be the first 19th-century Victorian woman president. Imagine!

I can already see myself, with my hand upon the Bible that will be held by Chief Justice Roberts, which is unfortunate, but what can one do? They can't be fired. Still, the image appeals, and beyond it I can see the bright future my young senator and I, and our country, will share. An increase in the minimum wage. Lower prices for prescription drugs. An end to the horrid occupation of Iraq. Finally, and thank God.

We are like a lamp atop the tall mast of a ship, the senator and I, and the American people are the wind that fills our sails. I am so fortunate to have been a good speech writer. The senator and I are quite a team. We have been blessed with the mercy of heaven, a strong political mandate, and a majority in both houses.

He is like the country he loves so much: towering, confident, not always as articulate as you would expect. He should probably run for the office himself someday. But, until then, I shall lead them both, my love and my country, for as long as they will let me, and when they put their collective arm around me I shall be their prop and their guide

Hot pick-up line, needs work.

If you were a new breed of chili pepper, you would be shiny and exotic and have nice smooth skin, and I would slice you in half and remove your stem but keep the inner ribbing and seeds (where the heat of the pepper is concentrated), which would prove to be a huge mistake, for I would mince you and add you to the ground turkey mixture that I'd be cooking and using as the filling for my low-fat baked empanadas, and I'd take one taste and immediately regret not researching the Scoville rating of you-as-a-pepper (which would somehow rank higher than pure capsaicin), and I'd begin to sweat and tear because you are so damn hot, and you'd think I was gross and had some sort of glandular problem, and I'd take the knife I used to slice you in your chili form and I'd plunge that knife into my heart because I couldn't bear it if you found me repulsive.

Activist Larry Kramer Calls for New "Gay Army" in Speech Marking ACT UP's 20th Anniversary -- Towleroad for modern gay men,

WE ARE NOT CRUMBS; WE MUST NOT ACCEPT CRUMBS
Remarks on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of ACT UP,
NY Lesbian and Gay Community Center,
March 13, 9007
By Larry Kramer

Rodger McFarlane, Eric Sawyer, Jim Eigo, Peter Staley, Troy Masters, Mark Harrington, David Webster, Jeremy Waldron, and Hannah Arendt contributed to the following remarks.

One day AIDS came along. It happened fast. Almost every man I was friendly with died. Eric still talks about his first boyfriend, 180 pounds, 28 years old, former college athlete, who became a 119 pound bag of bones covered in purple splotches in months. Many of us will always have memories like this that we can never escape.

Out of this came ACT UP. We grew to have chapters and affinity groups and spin-offs and affiliations all over the world. Hundreds of men and women once met weekly in New York City alone. Every single treatment against HIV is out there because of activists who forced these drugs out of the system, out of the labs, out of the pharmaceutical companies, out of the government, into the world. It is an achievement unlike any other in the history of the world. All gay men and women must let ourselves feel colossally proud of"

General Pace's Remarks Ignite National Debate on Gays in Military

Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson has come out against the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in a Washington Post editorial criticizing recent comments by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace, who said that "homosexuality is immoral" and gays hould not be allowed to serve openly.

Alan_simpsonHere's an excerpt from Simpson's op-ed:

"In World War II, a British mathematician named Alan Turing led the effort to crack the Nazis' communication code. He mastered the complex German enciphering machine, helping to save the world, and his work laid the basis for modern computer science. Does it matter that Turing was gay? This week, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said that homosexuality is "immoral" and that the ban on open service should therefore not be changed. Would Pace call Turing "immoral"?

Since 1993, I have had the rich satisfaction of knowing and working with many openly gay and lesbian Americans, and I have come to realize that "gay" is an artificial category when it comes to measuring a man or woman's on-the-job performance or commitment to shared goals. It says little about the person. Our differences and prejudices pale next to our historic challenge."

Good for Simpson. Incidentally, plenty of people did call Turing "immoral" at the time, and he killed himself with a cyanide apple a year after being convicted of "gross indecency" after it was discovered he was in a homosexual relationship. Following that conviction he was ordered to undergo hormone therapy or go to prison.

According to Pentagon figures released Tuesday, the number of gays discharged from the military dropped significantly in 2006: "According to preliminary Pentagon data, 612 homosexuals were discharged in fiscal 2006, fewer than half the 1,227 discharged in 2001. On average, more than 1,000 service members were discharged each year from 1997 to 2001 -- but in the past five years that number has fallen below 730." Critics have charged the U.S. Military with hypocrisy for retaining its gay and lesbian servicement simply because it needs them in a time of war.

Meanwhile, some at the Pentagon — Undersecretary of Defense David Chu to be precise — are suggesting that any national debate on gays in the military will undermine the war on terror.

Said Slate's Nathaniel Frank: "This is an astonishing claim for Chu to make—that not only must gays conceal their homosexuality to protect unit cohesion, but the entire country must avoid discussing homosexuality or else it will undermine the war effort. By this reasoning, we should ban discussion of whether to increase troops in Iraq and prohibit an inquiry into conditions at Walter Reed."

More as it develops.

UPDATE: Presidential hopeful Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) today applauded General Pace's remarks, casting his vote on the side of the bigots. Said Brownback in a circulated letter: "The question is whether personal moral beliefs should disqualify an individual from positions of leadership in the U.S. military? We think not. General Pace’s recent remarks do not deserve the criticism they have received. In fact, we applaud General Pace for maintaining a personal commitment to moral principles."

Faggot PR

Faggot PR

A quick primer for hets on how to treat us fags.

At the end of this column I’m going into rehab. So if I offend you faggots while you’re reading it, there’s no point in getting all pissy, because I’m playing the “get out of bad PR free” card right up front.
I’m planning on choosing the facility with the highest doctor-to-celebrity ratio. No B-listers. I’m thinking more Mel Gibson than Mark Foley. However, I’ll avoid the clinic treating Isaiah Washington because that would be—to use Sharon Stone’s word—absurd.
Sharon thinks it’s absurd for Isaiah to be getting counseling for calling his Grey’s Anatomy costar T.R. Knight Patrick Dempsey’s “little faggot.” “Please,” Sharon explained to the New York Post, “I call all my gay friends ‘big fags.’ ”
Obviously, Sharon doesn’t understand the distinction between how she treats her own personal fags and Isaiah’s method of domesticating faggots. It’s a common mistake among fag owners, which is why I’m devoting this space to clarifying, once and for all, the proper manner for heterosexuals to address their faggots. Perhaps you should post this advice on your refrigerator or in your office cubicle to help your heterosexual masters understand you a little better:

The Care and Handling of Today’s Faggot, Or Some of Your Best Friends Are Fags

You are a heterosexual. And most heterosexuals, like Sharon, have a difficult time telling their faggots apart. So you group them together in a herd—your “gay friends.” You should not be ashamed of this because you are normal and your faggots are not. It may help to think of them as the amuse bouches in your life. But if we examine more closely how Sharon salutes her fags, we’ll learn why Sharon became an Out 100 cover girl and Isaiah wound up groveling to his faggot in order to save his job. You see, Sharon refers to her faggots as “big fags,” while Isaiah calls his fag a “little faggot.”
In general, fags don’t mind being considered larger than life. They’re flamboyant by nature. But they bristle when addressed in the diminutive, as in “You little fag.” The exception to this rule is when addressing a faggot who is, in fact, overweight. Do not call even the most minimally paunchy fag a big fag. Ever. “Big ol’ faggot,” is, ironically, wholly acceptable to your faggot since fags have no sense of their own aging. The word old is incomprehensible to them. Some scholars have postured that it’s actually inaudible, at least in Abercrombie stores.
Also common in some areas of our great nation is the greeting “You dirty little faggot.” This is especially vexing for your fags. They are, after all, a very meticulous species and will begin to self-loathe if their hygiene is called into question. Same with “motherfucking faggot.” Given his unnaturally close relationship with his domineering mother, you can understand why this might be considered inappropriate.
Heterosexuals under the age of 21 may use the words faggot, gay, or queer in whatever manner they wish because everything on the planet is “so fucking gay” to them and every one of their friends, gay or normal, is a stupid-ass queer.
It should be noted that if your faggot happens to be a lesbian, you should probably not slur around them at all. Dykes cannot distinguish the subtle differences between slurs because they are too busy being stridently militant and avoiding the right man.
Always appropriate is the greeting “You goddamn fucking faggot.” Even your savviest fag cannot dispute that God does, in fact, damn fags and that all they ever do is fuck, occasionally breaking to cut your hair. If for some reason your fag takes exception to this moniker and appears on Ellen to denounce your good name, feel free to beat your faggot about the head and torso while yelling “Goddamn fucking faggot” because you’ve watched your fair share of pride parades, and all those fucking faggots seem to really get off on being spanked and whipped. In fact, you might as well invite your friends to join you in the violence because everyone knows faggots love orgies, and, after all, no one can upbraid you because you’re only beating up one faggot, and many of your other best friends are still gay, and you’re a little drunk, and you sort of vaguely remember a creepy priest, and you’re going into rehab anyway.
Let me be the first to apologize for this column. I can neither defend nor explain my behavior. Your complaints will be forwarded to me. I’ll read them between spa treatments.