Listen to this articleFirst off, darlings, let me wish you all a heartfelt Happy Thanksgiving! I simply love Thanksgiving Day, petals, because it’s one of the few holidays that the Christians didn’t rip off from the pagans, repackage in pastel colors, mark up the merchandise for and call their own. OK, they kind of screwed the Indians on Thanksgiving, but lets face it. Indians are way less adorable than druids, so they sort of had it coming.
Oh my God! Speaking of revisionist history (which technically we were), have you heard about the latest rewrite of the Book of Mormon? Do these people have no shame? It works out that “THE CHURCH” is coming to grips with the fact that the scientific record can’t support their “Jesus goes to South America and does Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto through interpretive dance” story. Well no duh! As if the absence of any physical records, artifacts or archeological record doesn’t raise any red flags of doubt, the new research on ancestral DNA comes up with zip, nada, bupkis. So without any genetic links to support its claims, it’s time for another Mormon Mulligan, or a DNA do-over if you will. Puhleeze, I can’t wait to see how the Romney campaign tries to explain this one away.
Anyway cherubs, speaking of politics (which we technically were), didn’t you just get the warm fuzzy tinglies (and rock-hard nipples) after the election results came out? I, for one, was thrilled! For those of you keeping score, we gained a progressive, thoughtful mayor (that, unlike the old one, won’t have to be taken down with elephant tranquilizers during budget meetings) and a few more progressive council members (although I will miss Nancy Saxton saying the most politically incorrect, but wonderfully truthful things). Most importantly, the extreme right’s pet ideological school vouchers project was voted down by the will of the people. In the prophetic words of Howard Dean, “Yeeeehaaa!” Enjoy the feeling while it lasts, folks, because you know its going to be pissed-off good ole boy payback time at the next legislative session. God knows that Bramble, Mero and Co. just don’t like to lose.
But the surprising issue for me was the failure of Proposition One supporting a bond for new police and fire facilities. I knew the campaign was in trouble when they couldn’t find a trustworthy police face for the billboards. Hmmm, that can’t be good. Let’s face it, pumpkins. When you have to use a German shepherd as your spokesman, you have a) taken anthropomorphism waaayy too far and b) your community policing program isn’t building the type of trust, relationships and community support that you think it is (now don’t get me started about the Gay and Lesbian Public Safety Liaison Committee or my nose will start bleeding!).
Now I’m no Dan Jones when it comes to demographics and polling, but doesn’t it seem odd to you that the huge gay and lesbian volunteer effort and voter turnout for Ralph Becker and the other gay-friendly council candidates didn’t carry over into the Public Safety Proposition? It made me a little curious so I made some calls. OK, quite a few calls. Here’s the non-scientific, statistically unreliable skinny: Among my politically aware and civically active friends, no one I know worked on Prop One and hardly anyone I knew voted for it. What little support Prop One had came from my lesbian friends (but in retrospect, I think they are just pro-demolition and pro-construction). The gay men I spoke to either didn’t like the idea of a tax hike, or the Proposition’s open-ended wish list of projects. More often, they just had no connection with the Police Department and simply said, “screw ‘em.”
As someone who has worked hard on building bridges between the gay and public safety communities, this election was a kind of sad wake up call that we have taken two steps forward and ten steps back. In some ways our interactions with the police are stuck back in the Chief Ortega administration. Believe me cupcakes, that’s not a good thing. And can we talk about how the West Valley City Police Department is prosecuting their indecency cases? Well, that’s a whole other column. So until then, relax and enjoy your tryptophan coma, darlings!
