Friday, June 29, 2001

'METHOD' ACTING: The United Methodist Church has offered a compromise with its Woodland Park congregation.

The Green Lake area church wants to keep the openly gay Rev. Mark Williams as its pastor, even though the denomination's rules prohibit "self-avowed practicing homosexuals" from the job. (The congregation had already lost a previous pastor, after she outed herself as a lesbian.)

The new deal: Williams can stick around, but only if supervised by an interim pastor who'd be the congregation's official senior minister. This arrangement would last at least until October, when the denomination's Judicial Council next meets.

I'd been involved in several churches back when I was into that sort of thing. The Methodists were the most liberal of the mainline Protestant churches. They (or at least many of them) were big on the "social gospel," a schtick in which one was expected to show his faith through good works (taking in Vietnamese refugees, recycling, boycotting grapes). Sunday sermons would often be concerned with why we should vote for the school levy or support affirmative action.

Our youth group met in a parsonage basement, whose concrete walls were painted black and adorned with "War Is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things" posters. Some other Methodist youth groups screened explicit sex-ed films for teens (albeit with in-person lecturers explaining the importance of a strong marriage or at least a strong committed relationship).

But this almost-Unitarian do-gooderism annoyed some of the old-timers in certain congregations. These church ladies and gents were more accustomed to the Methodism that was the blandest of the old-line Protestant faiths. (Welch's Grape Juice was originally marketed to Methodists, as a non-alcoholic communion drink.)

This rift continues, nearly three decades later, and is at the heart of the Woodland Park church's little brouhaha. And it will probably always be part of that odd denomination; so long as the old-timers control its hierarchy while its social-gospelers take their own "embracing diversity" talk seriously by staying in the church.

(This article's permanent link.)

posted by clark 12:41 PM

Thursday, June 28, 2001

WHAT I NEED FROM YOU TODAY: For a freelance project, I'm after tales of wild living and financial/business excess during those wacky, never-to-be-forgotten days of the late '90s. Insane real estate deals; folks blowing stock-option money they never tangibly had on cars, trips, or plastic surgery; bizarre tech-company office pranks and perks; cyber-libertarians and cyber-libertines. Send 'em all to clark@speakeasy.org.

'PRESS' CLIPPED: The North Seattle Press, "Seattle's Bi-Weekly Urban Journal," ran out of money and ceased publication after 16 years and at least three sets of owners. It was a feisty little rag that crammed its small editorial holes (as few as five non-ad tabloid pages) with personality and spunk.

ELSEWHERE:

Somebody who took that 1997 "bosom for a pillow" song lyric literally.

"Experts: Birds are imitating cell phones..."

posted by clark 11:40 PM

Wednesday, June 27, 2001

MAYOR MAY NOT DEPT.: Mark Sidran is rapidly emerging as the favorite Seattle mayoral candidate among certain people who don't live in Seattle.

Specifically, among certain Eastside and Vashon Island business moguls who seek to spread the Word According to Limbaugh, in which the role of government is (1) to further accelarate the concentration of wealth and power in the corporate elite, and (2) to subject the rest of the populace to draconian, even militaristic social controls.

Directly, Sidran's "get-tuff" platform wouldn't immediately benefit the bosses of Paccar and Food Services of America (who are among Sidran's biggest financial benefactors). But indirectly, a hard-right administration running America's third or fourth most supposedly-liberal town would be a boon to the promoters of a rigidly caste-stratified society (no matter how much they publicly emote about "empowerment" and entrepreneurism).

And, of course, the mandatory-mellowness and demographic-cleansing tactics Sidran's pursued as City Attorney have benefitted many condo developers, real-estate speculators, and "market-price" restaurateurs these past eight years.

But the question remains: Sidran's proven adept at raising big bucks from out-of-town (and out-of-state) Right ideologues (to the point of violating the individual-donation limits he's supposed to be enforcing), but can he translate that loot into real votes from real in-town voters?

I suspect not. He's done such a successful job of pissing off so many resident Seattle individuals, groups, and influence bases, the election's already turned into a strategy issue: Not merely to prevent Sidran's election but how to prevent a Schell-SIdran final race. (Incumbent Paul Schell, we all know, is little more than the gentrification "good cop" to Sidran's "bad cop.")

Should we all wholeheartedly back generic respectable-liberal Greg Nickels in the primary? Or would a strong Nickels run merely split the stop-Sidran vote, leaving a stronger Sidran to face a weaker Schell in the final?

Heck if I know.

(This article's permanent link.)

posted by clark 1:05 PM

Monday, June 25, 2001

THE MAILBAG: Linda Rose writes,

From: "Linda Rose"
To: obits@thestranger.com
Subject: Beaver Chief's obit
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 18:02:14

Hi there,

I am Beaver Chief's webmaster and I was wondering if you could provide a link to beaverchief.com on his obituary.

Thanks,
Linda ________________

posted by clark 4:34 PM

Sunday, June 24, 2001

CAN'T I BE OUT TOO?: Seattle's annual Gay Pride Parade (officially, the "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Parade, March, and Freedom Rally") long ago ceased to be a niche-subculture celebration.

Today it has only slightly more specifically-gay meaning than the modern St. Patrick's Day has specifically-Irish meaning.

It's become the day when everybody claims or pretends to be, if not a proud queer, at least a proud friend of proud queers.

The floats, performance troups, and marching units of actual lesbians and gays (and their support groups) are heavily interspersed with those of officially gay-friendly corporations (Microsoft), marketers (KUBE-FM, Starbucks, lots of beer companies), and politicians major and minor.

Why, even petty-tyrant-wannabe mayoral candidate Mark Sidran showed up to aggressively shake everyone's hands, whether folks wanted their hands shook or not. (Sidran was accompanied by a small entourage holding up yard signs, whose logo bore a loud rightward-pointing arrow).

Some gays might consider this mainstreaming as a sign that gays and gay rights are increasingly accepted in American society, yea even among the power brokers of business and politics.

But other gay activists, who'd dreamed their liberation movement would lead to a larger public questioning of the so-called "dominant culture," have branded such mainstreamed celebrations with such terms as "assimilationist."

They allege that the organizers of rituals such as Seattle's Pride Parade are helping destroy not just the larger queer-lib political agenda but the distinct GLBT subculture.

I can leave such distinctions to those within the community.

But I can say that the overall trend in this country is for more subcultures and social niches, not fewer. Even within LGBT there are subgroups (gay men, lesbians, bis, M2F trannies, F2M trannies, cross-dressers, etc.) and sub-subgroups (bears, leather, butch, femme, etc.) and sub-sub-subgroups (too numerous to even sample).

That's one of the aspects of the Pride Parade's smiling, family-friendly homosexuality that helps make it so appealing to so many straights.

Thousands of Americans who've never been erotically attracted to someone of the same gender wish they could belong to a subculture like GLBT; though preferably without the job-discrimination and general bigotries so many real GLBTs face.

And I don't just mean those urban-hipster straight women who think it's cool to pretend to be bi, or those college-town straight men who wish they could be as sanctimonious as radical lesbians.

We're all "queer" in one way or another, in the older and larger definition of the term. We're all different, from one another and from any dictated vision of "normality."

And we all have a sexuality; and many of us wish (at least secretly) that we could be part of a culture in which we could proudly proclaim our sexual selves, without fear of being branded as sluts or chauvanist pigs or unfit parents.

Postscript: The night before the parade, Showtime ran Sex With Strangers, a documentary by Joe and Harry Gantz about three couples (two from Olympia), and the bi-female "friend" of one of them, who are all in the swingers' lifestyle. The closing "where are they now" titles revealed that three of the seven individual protagonists had lost their jobs after their nonmonogamies became known. (The other four were either self-employed or were now on "extended vacations.") The lesson: You don’t have to be gay to need the more progressive social attitudes gay-lib promotes.

Post-postscript: The loneliest-looking entry in the Pride Parade was the car sponsored by the Capitol Hill Alano Club, with its plain signage, few passengers, and fewer attending marchers. The 12-Step group was almost directly followed by a succession of beer-company vans and trucks (even a delivery semi rig).

(This article's permanent link)

posted by clark 10:32 PM

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