Garrison Keillor is in some hot water over comments he made about homosexuals in an article on Slate. Then Dan Savage takes him to task in an overwrought, hyper-sensational article entitled, Fuck Garrison Keillor (via Pinkys Paperhaus). I’m going to have to side with Keillor on this one. Dan Savage, at least in this article, comes across as positively puerile. I’m wondering whether he even read the article, or whether he just picked out a couple of key words and started ranting. The comments after his post are just as ill-informed and knee-jerk reactionary – except for the people who suspect it might have been satire. You think? There isn’t much that’s offensive in the article. Really. I find ever since the gay movement began, people go off about gay rights at the drop of the hat, and in this case, it’s completely unwarranted.
1st complaint: that he stereotypically portrays gay men. Hello? He uses the word STEREOTYPICAL as an adjective before he even begins that clause about small dogs and fussy hair. What is the problem? He is describing a stereotypical gay man, not as the norm, and not necessarily as he sees them, but as a cultural stereotype. Anyone have a problem with referencing stereotypes? And his second assertion, that gay men need to calm down and focus on the children rather than themselves, makes sense in light of the context – the whole article is about providing for children. Now clearly, he should have pointed out that gay men are probably no less likely than heterosexual couples to be overly concerned about themselves rather than about their children, but this isn’t that type of article. It’s not the type of piece that patiently rebuts every point of view, or looks at the topic from every side. People need to learn how to read according to genre. The last potentially inflammatory idea is that back in the heterosexual day children didn’t have so many relatives to keep track of. Okay, this is poppycock. I don’t quite see how he thinks that children had it good before the gay relatives came along. They have to be shuttled around more now? No, probably not. This is a case of an old-timer whitewashing the past. But overall, Dan Savage’s flame throwing response is just way too much.
