Queen SofÃa of Spain was bored of flying from airports named in her honor one day and decided to sit down with author Pilar Urbano and get literate by saying a bunch of entertaining things about gays in an interview for a book.
It seems that the 70-year-old queen was under the impression that it was all a big pretend game, like a mock naval battle or an election and was surprised to learn that the book, The Queen Up Close, was actually going to be published and read by the common-folk.
Turns out the queen, a member of the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (say it three times fast aloud right now) dynasty has all sort of conservative royal opinions, much like Peggy Noonan — only SofÃa’s actual royalty.
She wonders why LGBT people “should feel proud to be gay…That they get up on floats and parade in the streets? If all of us who are not gay were to parade in the streets, we’d halt the traffic in every city.” She also mentions that she doesn’t support gay marriage, but is okay with civil unions. She supports teaching creationism and credits herself with getting Fidel Castro to change from his military garb to a suit and tie.
The Spanish monarchy is upset that the cranky things their Queen says to them all day managed to get written down and have said that she was quoted “inexactly” and apologized if Grandma’s nutty rants upset any of the local homosexual peasantry. The Spanish Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexual accepted the apology, failing to mention that come Madrid Pride, you can bet half the gays will be dressed up as sexy, glittery SofÃa’s.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Distingué Traces
So the royal family of Spain is ethnically German?
jojobean873
Actually, she was from the Greek Royal Family (not a member of whom has a drop of Greek blood in them) – the Greek family is an off-shoot of the Danish Royal Family. The Borbon family (who Sofia married into) is an offshoot of the French Royal Family, via Louis XIV’s grandson.
dgz
you know this site reported this same story a week ago, right?
jojobean873
Pardon the grammatical errors.
Jaroslaw
DGZ – there seems to be a bit of new material in this post – but in “The Week” magazine which excerpted columnists’ take on this, the Queen didn’t seem to have such an apologetic approach. ???
Jaroslaw
DGZ – there seems to be a bit of new material in this post – but in “The Week” magazine which excerpted columnists’ take on this, the Queen didn’t seem to have such an apologetic approach. ??? Of course, that just could be their opinions….
Smartypants
Pretty much all of the royal families of Europe have a large amount of Germanic (technically Austrian) blood thanks to the very successful breeding policies of the Hapsburgs over 600 years (basically 1300-1900 give or take a few decades).
When you get down to it, the Hapsburgs would have married a farm animal to add another duchy or minor principate to the family holdings. At one time or another the Hapsburg family controlled the Austro-Hungarian empire which included most of Central Europe with chunks of Northern Italy. Meanwhile, the Spanish branch of the family ruled the Iberian Peninsula, all of Spain’s holdings in the New World (Mexico, California, Texas, and all the Spanish-speaking territories of the Caribbean and South America) and the Philippines in Asia. In the 19th century the British liked to brag about the sun never setting on their empire, but the Hapsburgs beat them to it by a couple of hundred years.
Smartypants
To finish up — the Hapsburgs and other royal families have been in-breeding themselves out of existence. Basically, cousins kept marrying cousins for centuries to keep the family lands intact. Over the past 150 years or so this has really started to catch up with them. As a particular example, Sofia is her own cousin, being descended from Queen Victoria through both her mother and father. And hubby Juan Carlos is a third cousin.
Anyone who’s taken intro biology knows that inbreeding eventually leads to bad results. So don’t be too harsh on Queen Sofia — it’s not her fault she has stupid conservative views. She was just bred that way.
Darth Paul
@Smartypants: They actually had a fondess of marrying girls to their (inbred) cousin/uncles, in particular. That’s why the old Hapsburgs had such f&cked up jawlines, amongst things.
The royalty of Europe is obscenely Germanified (is that a word?). The Windsors are technically “Sachse-Coburg and Gothe” but the then-King saw it wise to change the name to Windsor during WWI. It stuck since then.
Smartypants
@Darth Paul:
Ugh! That hideous Hapsburg jaw. Like Edvard Munch put Jay Leno’s chin on the rack.
QEII’s uncle also anglicized his name during WWI from Battenberg to Mountbatten to distance the English monarchy from their Hun cousins. The German bloodlines of the royal houses is actually kind of ironic when you consider that Germany was the last region of Europe to actually come together as a nation — and then it was the fricking Prussians who led the way with their “blood and iron” craziness.
Strepsi
Has anyone else noted the irony of this thread is that it shows the REAL “Traditional Marriage” — it was to sell your daughter so you can get land or stuff, or combine land or stuff, and then force her to have a son or die trying so you can keep land or stuff.
Having radically redefined marriage through activist courts, by insisting they are equal to their husbands, (love honor and CHERISH) any straight woman who voted Yes on 8 is a MASSIVE HYPOCRITE
kevin
Queen who?
Smartypants
@Strepsi:
Excellent point. REALLY traditional marriage was all about power, property and alliances for the rich and powerful. Throw in fun things like droit de seigneur (the right for a lord to deflower any of his female vassals on her wedding night)and the Rule of Thumb that allowed a man to legally beat his wife for any reason, as long as the stick he used was no thicker than his thumb — it makes today’s same-sex marriage fuss look rather mundane.
Darth Paul
@Smartypants: The “rule of thumb” you’re citing is an urban legend with regard to wifebeating.
But it IS worth mentioning that “traditional” marriage routinely involved pedophilia and child rape in that girls as young as 11 were married off to men more than twice their age.
Erick
Old news, Queerty covered this when it happened…weeks ago! You guys should really check your on archives.
Charles J. Mueller
Hmm. I said the same thing too, Erick, but for some reason, it did not get posted?
Japhy Grant
@Erick: Hey Erick– the response from the Spanish monarchy and the LGBT org response is brand-new.
ben
Her comments aren’t very conservative at all, especially for a 70 year old royal who was probably raised more conservatively than one could imagine.
She is merely saying that she doesn’t understand why one would be proud of something like sexuality and it’s been taken out of context. She, like a great many 30 year olds, doesn’t quite understand why civil unions are insufficient.
If any other 70 year old celebrity (that you’ve probably never heard of before) said something this pedestrian it wouldn’t still be newsworthy weeks and weeks later.
Jan
Pilar Urbano is an Opus Dei journalist, she would push all of you to say things that you didn’t want to or she would take it out of context. The Royal family has apologized. If you haters had the same rights as gay people here in Spain, you wouldn’t care a bit what she said. Fight on your own ground, you had much more work to be done than the LGBT community in Europe, Spain in particular!
Felipe
No, the royal family of Spain is ethnically french: Borbon
AZgaybe
oh please! she is covering up the fact that she has a cheese filled uncut dick under that dress!
gordon
If you have seen her speak on tv, she is a total dyke. She married because it was her duty.