You’ve probably heard – and forgotten – that Oprah‘s getting all sorts of gay today. The talk show maven will be taking viewers around the world for a fabulous tour, including a sit down with Indian Prince Manvendra and former b-baller John Amaechi.
The big O also takes a look into gay Iran. Someone tell Mahmoud!
Rt. Rev. Dr. RES
Oprah Winfrey alone – with one comment on a television programme – launched the presidential aspirations of Barak Obama.
Oprah has never been anything but supportive of all minorities, and her work in South Africa, where gay and lesbian marriage is legal, is well-known with that special school she built.
Barak Obama bears all the marks of a neophyte pol on the federal level. There have been those who go from state legislator to federal legislator, but usually it takes several terms to go from state capitol to Capitol Hill.
Barak is scripted, but with a brilliant mind, and excellent verbal skills, he presents himself as a DLC version of William Jefferson Clinton – also a small town boy who became the exception to the rule and earned the world class credentials given without effort to societal legacies, like the POTUS.
Hillary and Bill have many African-American supporters who once claimed that Bill was the first “black president”. The only anti-Hillary black spokespersons are the Dominionist anti-gay theocrats who dot the right wing.
Gone are the days when you can tailor your message to one constituency diametrically opposite from another.
Dom
I wonder if Oprah will honor Obama’s “ex-gay” pal that’s going on tour for him. I still remember when Oprah had the cast of “Brokeback Mountain” on for half of her show, and then she follows them up with that horrendous drag-act and homophobe-supporting jagoff Tyler Perry. Oprah is about as comfortable with gay issues and gay people as a Republican presidential candidate getting endorsements from Larry Craig and Mark Foley.
Leland Frances
Oh, Dom, you are even closer to the truth than you realize! Not only has O been a huge supporter of Donnie Singer Against the Gay Curse McClurkin but has had him on her show and invited him to her huge Obama fundraiser at her version of Tara. THAT, in fact, is where Obama and McClurkin first met!
While she has her own personal Pocket Gay in cute Nate Berkus [whom she stills gets off on titillating her female audience with AS IF he were still in the public closet and remotely interested in them], and luvs to hobnob with certified celebrity gays, she has repeatedly shown that she’s very ambivalent about mere mortal gays and gayness itself; from being the only one to feel the need to repeatedly deny she and gal pal Gail are lovers to single-handedly making a star out of the snake who wrote the vile book about the down low. Every time she has on a woman who had been involved with a gay man, she demands, “But couldn’t you TELL? Weren’t there SIGNS?†And teared up only during the interview with a pro football player telling his story about being molested as a child when a psychologist assured him he was “still a MAN!†Whenever the rare gay guest mentions homophobia, she invariably bleats, “Do gays STILL have problems??!!†I guess she thought she had to leave the country today to find them.
And, yes, after, of course asking Ledger and Gyllenhaal about how uncomfortable they MUST have been to have to, horror of horrors, KISS ANOTHER MAN, her bums’ rush to the cast of “Brokeback Mountain†as it was peaking as one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the decade and being lauded as the most gay-positive mainstream film in history was as revealing as anything. Particularly win she juxtaposed it in the rest of the show with an ostensibly straight guy who makes his living doing purposely bad drag. A MAN IN WOMEN’S CLOTHES? Now THAT’S entertainment!
Before anyone responds regarding her interview with Berkus after his lover died in the tsunami, recall that the words “gay†and “lover†and “boyfriend†were never mentioned which, given that Berkus had never discussed his orientation before and O had been dangling him like catnip for women for years, led to some confusion/denial about his references to his “partner.†One person writing on O’s Website said she was so sorry to learn that Nate had lost his “business partner.â€
Miss O may have accelerated them, but there’s no reason to believe that Obama wasn’t already aspiring before their paths ever crossed to run for President some day.
They have some good things in common, and I reiterate that I would vote for Obama in the GENERAL election [though never the primary after this unnecessary mess with McClurkin]. But one of the bad things they have in common is that they really don’t take gay rights and homophobia all that seriously, and, thus, they can entertain, promote, and share the stage with someone that Black lesbian minister Irene Monroe calls “the poster boy for African-American ‘ex-gay’ ministries.â€
ProfessorVP
Oprah interviewing a gay person is like Bullwinkle interviewing a moose.
Bill Perdue
On Sep 21st, 2007 Frances posted his opinion of Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Barack Obama on the Queerty blog. Frances had his usual hissy fit and said of Barack Obama: “Technically Obama’s position may be no less supportive of marriage equality than the others, but none of them brag about how much Black churches have influenced him, the majority of which rabidly oppose gay rights.”
Where is the poll or data that prove that “Black churches have influenced him, the majority of which rabidly oppose gay rights.” It’s true that some African American churches and church leaders are paid bigots for Bush but just as true that many refused to get trapped like that. They understood, like Kenneth Samuel, a Georgia pastor and NAACP official that many African American pastors oppose gay marriage because they’ve been “bought out” with faith-based initiative money.
Frances then takes on his version of Oprah Winfrey by inventing a straw woman and slashing her to pieces, his only method of argument other than his hissy fits and sordid name calling.
“As for O, a more accurate response is that her endorsement is no “more†antigay than her history. I’m sick of the myth that Oprah is Miss Gay Friendly when the only evidence is that she’s friends with some gays—as long as they’re celebrities.” Well at least she didn’t vote for or sign on to DOMA and DADT.
“As for her Saint of the Gays credentials: why does she feel the need to ever, let alone repeatedly, deny she’s gay? “ When Hillary does it it’s ok, so why is it so bad when Oprah Winfrey does it.
Frances tears into his straw woman, claiming without a single quote that she constantly asks “Do gay people STILL have problems?†and answers with his usual vitriolic hissy fit: “Yes, Bitch, we do. And you are more a part of those problems than the solution.â€
I don’t know if she always asks that question but I think she may have a different answer than the straw women he created because of her show today.
Frances is fuming about Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement because unlike most shills for Heir Apparent Hillary, she actually has clout.
As a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found that “six in 10 adults say endorsements aren’t that important in deciding whom they’ll support for president,” endorsements mostly create momentum, help in fundraising and organizing, or can confer credibility…†But Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Obama may prove the exception says USC professor Steve Ross: “There’s probably nobody with that potential greater than Oprah. [If she increased turnout by just 1 percentage point,] 1% of an increased vote in key states could swing an election. That’s why Oprah’s endorsement is different.”
That’s why Frances is purple with rage about her endorsement, why he attacks only “Black churches have influenced him, the majority of which rabidly oppose gay rights.” and calculatingly ignores losing the role of catholic and southern baptist churches, whose clout is exponentially greater than that of “Black churches†in arousing the bigot vote.
We need to keep in mind that GLBT folk and African Americans both have to struggle against bigotry in spite of the problems some have with that concept. Those problems were invented to divide and rule and we have to be aware that our enemies are bigoted politicians like those responsible for DOMA, DADT, and the gutting of ENDA plus the bigoted priests, preachers and mullahs who whore for them.
Oprah Winfrey is not in that category, in spite of her imperfections. But she’s most assuredly not “Yes, Bitch, we do. And you are more a part of those problems than the solution.â€