Queer Issue 2006

Additional Amendments, Restrictions, and Bans

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The Queer Issue

Divorced From Reality: The Constitutional Amendment We Really Need Would Protect Us from Family-Values Hypocrites—and Protect Family-Values Hypocrites from Themselves by Hank Stuever
George W. Bush's effort to write anti-gay bigotry into the U.S. Constitution died in the U.S. Senate earlier this month. That came as a relief, as did Tim Eyman's failure to get his anti-gay-rights referendum on the ballot in Washington State. But we haven't seen the last of the federal anti-gay-marriage amendment. (Or Eyman.)
Pride 2006 Events Calendar: Pride Week Festivities, from the Broadway Grill's ABBA tribute to Wildrose's Wet T-Shirt Contest
Pride Events
Ban Heterosexual Complacency: Meet the Oppressed Sexual Majority by Erica C. Barnett
Amend It to End It: A Risky Amendment Could Stop the Emerging Anti-Gay-Adoption Movement in Its Tracks by Dan Savage
The Fag-Hag Emancipation Act of 2006: The First Thing We're Banning Is the Term "Fag Hag." The Next Thing to Go Is That Gay Ex-Nazi Trucker in My Living Room. by Cienna Madrid
Marry Me a Little: The Civil Union Instigation Act by David Schmader
I Am Not a Butt Plug by Mr. Nibbles
The Seven Year Ditch by Amy Jenniges
No Queer Child Left Behind: We Need to Remember "Our" Kids During Pride by Kate Bornstein
Ban the Abs: A Few New Regulations for Gay "Art" Photographers and Their Patrons by Jen Graves
PRO & CON: Ban Girls from Engaging in Drunken Displays of Faux-Bisexuality by Hannah Levin and Josh Feit
Scummy Film: It's Time for a Moratorium on Bad Gay Movies by Annie Wagner
Life Sentence: A Fitting Punishment for Political Closet Cases by Eli Sanders
Ex-Ex-Gay Reparations
Legislating Tolerance: Making Health Clubs a Safe Space for Heterosexual Men by Thomas Francis
Waiting Periods: Legislatures Across the Country Have Approved Waiting Periods for Gun Purchases and Abortions; We'd Like to Propose These Queer-Specific Waiting Periods by Dan Savage, Christopher Frizzelle, Eli Sanders, Trisha Ready, Amy Jenniges, Adrian Ryan, Andrea Demajewski and Brendan Kiley
Three Strikes, You're Out: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Unpardonable Gay Crimes by La Fauxsa Nostra (AKA the Seattle Gay Mafia)
Comic: Woodland Creatures Speak Up for the Appropriating Names of Wildlife Restriction

George W. Bush's effort to write anti-gay bigotry into the U.S. Constitution died in the U.S. Senate earlier this month.

That came as a relief, as did Tim Eyman's failure to get his anti-gay-rights referendum on the ballot in Washington State. But we haven't seen the last of the federal anti-gay-marriage amendment. (Or Eyman.) Like the human-life and flag-burning amendments before it, the proposed anti-gay-marriage amendment will rear up—if I may use that image—whenever cynical Republicans need to crank up their base.

Stranger Personals

It's not just same-sex marriage that social conservatives are seeking to ban. They're opposed to civil unions—to any recognition of same-sex couples at all. In states where same-sex marriage has already been banned, religious conservatives are seeking to ban adoptions by same-sex couples. Queers cannot be mentioned in classrooms—not even classrooms they're sitting in. Hell, they're trying to get us banned from the window displays at Macy's.

Increasingly emboldened social conservatives are also moving against the rights of heterosexuals, seeking to ban abortion, birth control, and reality-based sex education.

But what about the things queers would like to see banned? Like hypocritical, thrice-divorced Republican defenders of "traditional marriage"? Or gay men in mesh shirts? Or drunken straight girls pretending to be bisexual? Or parental disapproval that stretches past a reasonable statute of limitations? Or heterosexual complacency?

For The Stranger's annual Queer Issue we invited homos, genderqueers, progressive hets, and oppressed gerbils to propose a few amendments, restrictions, and bans of our own.