Have truer words ever been spoken?  Everybody loves David after the dentist:

Well, maybe not everybody -- some of the Boing Boing commentators are crying exploitation but please, get a grip, people.  After all, there's a website called "Preteen Child Model Land" (that will I NOT be linking to) out there.

Strange how it's the little things that can be so controversial.  People are still talking about the recording of Christian Bale's on-the-set freakout and, more importantly, making fun of it!  There's the Christian Bale Soundboard to let you play your favourite bits of profanity and, of course, the NSFW Dance Remix:

The Guardian newspaper is upset at Morrissey's choice of sleeve art for his new single:

I'm just sad those are 7" records, not 12, but "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris" is a terrific song.

Need news of the catfight between Hilary Duff and Faye Dunaway?  Of course you do.

Actress Vivica A. Fox is trying to duck controversy over her decision to sell out and join the Psychic Friends Network.  She hilariously claims that they did it all without her permission (well, they ARE psychic) even though there's video of her ad!

Remember how, last week, I said I was done writing about the crazy sexuality of Ted Haggard?  That was before the even crazier revelations about his sexuality.  Offering up his daughter for marriage to the young guy he wants to plow?  That's controversial!

But for a topic truly worthy of coffee talk, we can mull over the Swedish HIV study that claims that HIV-negative guys who perform oral sex on their positive partners develop antibodies that make them immune to their partner's particular strain of HIV.  There's a catch, warns Elizabeth Pisani, but it's all certainly fascinating -- even more controversial than Hilary Duff!

 

It's that German word meaning "delight in the misfortune of others" and I thought that today, of all days, I'd be feeling it in spades as disgraced evangelical Christian leader Ted Haggard did the talk show circuit, appearing on "Nightline," "Oprah" and "Larry King Live" in an attempt to explain away his sexual hypocrisy and recast himself as "a heterosexual with issues."  What I didn't expect was an apology:

Damn.  I wasn't expecting him to be so forthright, even as I grit my teeth at the inevitability of right-wingers holding him up as a poster boy for "change."  Seemingly no longer able to convince the public to hate gays, they now adopt a stance of "love," hoping to convert us with talk of leading us to God.  Or, as James my artist friend says, "lead us to Auschwitz," whichever comes first!

Fortunately, when Haggart's long-suffering wife starts up with that crap, she gets a smackdown from Oprah:

But all in all, Haggard is no longer fun for me.  Straight, gay, bisexual or with "issues," I don't care -- I just want him to go away.  But who can I pick on?  Not the "pansified" "Hockey Night in Canada" gang -- Don Cherry loves the gays, no matter what we might say about his horrifying suits:

Mockery's hard to come by this morning.  I can't even go near the awful weirdness of the guy who died on the toilet in his gas mask or the horror of the XBox teen rapist.  There's just not enough "ewww" in the world.

Good thing there's the ever-reliable Stephen Harper, with his budget schemes blowing up in his face this week. If I can't make fun of sexually confused unemployed pastors or squicky sex crimes, I'll just have to settle for the Prime Minister of Canada!  Now I feel as warm and cozy as one of his sweaters -- thanks, Steve!

 

Though we all strive for common ground, there are just so many things that people will never see eye to eye on. For instance...

-- Some will find Angela Lansbury's morning routine screamingly funny; others will find it screamingly horrific:

-- The Pope has reinstated a bishop excommunicated 20 years ago, believing he got a raw deal; we can't help but notice the guy is a Holocaust denier who hates women, gays and even "The Sound of Music!" How do you solve a problem like a Nazi?

-- The Canadian parliament is finally back in session today. Some of us are eagerly awaiting the results; others are disappointed to learn that Canada was not actually taken over by Barack Obama last week.

-- Dean Coxx says you can do gay porn without actually being gay; Tyra Banks makes her "girl-I-don't-think-so" face:

-- disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard still insists he's heterosexual; the discovery of the second guy he was regularly having sex with, however, makes us think of Voltaire!

-- most of us believe that "Batman" star Christian Bale is not Kermit the Frog; one blogger with way too much on his hands says different:

-- and finally, we have Randy Thomasson of the (yawn) "Campaign for Children and Families," who whines:

"The homosexual activists never stop claiming to be victims, even when they have an iron stiletto heel upon your neck."

Let's ignore the fact that I totally want to see an all-drag-queen heavy-metal band called Iron Stiletto and instead lament poor Randy's sad, Bizarro World vision of gay people. It's so dark, so full of hate and lacking in joy. My vision of gay life has always looked more like this:

Latin rhythms, shirtless men, dancing girls, monkeys, lengthy tracking shots and lots and lots of fruit!  Fabulous!!!

Well, I have to hand it to Barack Obama. He's nothing if not fair. After upsetting the queer community by choosing Rick "gay marriage is like incest" Warren to deliver the invocation at this Tuesday's inauration, the US president-elect has now pissed off the religious right by choosing gay bishop Gene Robinson to perform a similar function at Sunday's kick-off event.  Smooooooooth, that Obama.  Here's Robinson telling Rachel Maddow all about it:

Columnist Matt Barber fumes:

"It's a shame that our next president apparently has so little regard for his Christian constituents that he would give such a high place of honor to a self-styled man of God whose only claim to fame is that he abandoned his wife and children to enter, 'loudly and proudly,' a sexually deviant lifestyle expressly condemned by the very Bible he's ironically called 'holy and sacred.'"

This of course fired up my Rant-o-meter^TM as it coincided with the blunt and long-awaited comments from the Rev. Al Sharpton a couple days ago:

"I am tired of seeing ministers who will preach homophobia by day, and then after they’re preaching, when the lights are off they go cruising for trade."

Finally, someone else said it!  Now, Sharpton's not specifically talking about the humiliated megachurch leader Ted Haggard (there are so many other examples, of course) but it was just this week that Haggard popped up again, promoting a new documentary about him, and let us know how his "gay conversion" therapy is going:

"My therapist says I am a heterosexual with complications. I don't say that because it is more complex. I love my relationship with my wife."

"Heterosexual with complications" -- is that what the kids are calling it these days?  I love it -- it sounds like a weather report: "Today will be mostly heterosexual with some scattered gayness and a slight chance of hookers and crystal meth."  Those of us with memories, of course, will recall that Haggard was pronounced "completely heterosexual" in February 2007 (but hey, so was Clay Aiken!).

But my point (and I had to get around to it sooner or later) lies in all three statements from Barber, Sharpton and Haggard: it's the creepy schism inherent in them, this idea (and not one just limited to the Christian right) that sexuality exists as something outside of life, outside of love or politics or truth.  There are too many people, even gay ones, who think that their sexuality is something they can neatly tuck away in a box.

Such compartmentalizing never holds out for long. Poor Ted Haggard went through hell but still can't wrap his brain around the notion that he might be gay AND love his wife.  Almost all of us -- straight, gay, bi or what-have-you -- have people in our lives that we love dearly but don't necessarily want to fuck, and others that we want to fuck but don't necessarily love. Haggard thinks he's a "sinner" or "weak" when he's actually being human.  Like most of us, he just needs to reconcile his various desires. It's why gay people come out in the first place, recognizing that our sexuality is a major component of our very identity. 

The clueless Matt Barber says that Gene Robinson "abandoned" his family for a mere "lifestyle," when anybody with an ounce of compassion and a speck of brain-matter understands that Robinson loved his family enough to stop lying to them over the fact that his heart, his soul and yes, his loins were crying out for another man.  Robinson didn't create a schism like Haggard's; he was trying to heal one.

Sexuality -- queer or otherwise -- can't be divorced from the rest of life.  It's a beautiful and fascinating part of it and, in each of us, it shapes how we see the world (or, if you're Matt Barber, how you don't).  The opposition to this reality -- politically and culturally -- is the single most poisonous thing that the religious right have done.  Haven't the fruitless struggles of Ted Haggard and so many, many more just like him proven that already?

So cheers to Gene Robinson for championing the integration of sexuality, religion and politics and to Barack Obama for trying to work it into his own vision.  It's long, long overdue!

Tomorrow:  more Britney Spears cruelty, 'Battlestar Galactica' giddiness and the best condom ad ever!