Hey straight people: Have I got a deal for you.

I know you feel a bit guilty sometimes about tossing all those queers out of your houses, churches, and Boy Scout troops. Well, listen. For a limited time only, we'll let you take a few back, free of charge.

This batch of gays will make fabulous permanent houseguests. They're well-meaning, well-intentioned do-gooders. What more could you want? They strive never to criticize anyone, never to utter a judgmental word, never to speak a stigmatizing sentence. You can do anything around them and they won't complain--believe me, we gays have been knowingly passing terrible diseases to each other right in front of these guys' faces for years and they haven't said anything. What could you do that would upset them? Oh, and here's an added bonus: They're really good at applying for grants and securing government handouts.

So take them. Please. It's so easy: Just get in the minivan and come over and scoop 'em up. Really. No one will stop you--hardly anyone will even know they're gone. There aren't that many, and they're easy to locate. Just ask for the people who call themselves our "community health leaders." But between you and me, once you find them and take them back, I don't recommend offering them another job in community health.

Why not? These are the same "community health leaders" who over the past six years spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in public health funds and still managed to say almost nothing about the rising rates of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia in the gay community.

When publicly available data clearly showed that the unsafe sexual behavior of some gay men was causing this rise in gay STD rates, these guys said nothing to, or about, these reckless homos--because to say something would have been judgmental. When most sentient people said the rise in unsafe sexual behavior was all but certainly leading to a spike in new gay HIV infections, our local gay men's health leaders said the data was unclear.

And then, this month, after the local health department announced that gay HIV infections are in fact spiking, the gay health leaders' response was to express alarm, promise a response, and then do the same old thing. So you can see why they're not quite right for us. But they're perfect for you! I mean, surely you must have a need for people who can do nothing meaningful while claiming to be doing something very, very important.

What? Not coming? Hmmm.... OK, listen, I'll throw in something else. How about if we also give you a newspaper? Look, if you'll come take our community health leaders right now, we'll also give you the Seattle Gay News, free of charge. (We've enclosed a sample issue of the SGN for your perusal; just turn the page.)

This is a great deal, straight people. We're not talking about just one copy of the SGN, or a subscription or something. We're talking about the whole operation--the editors, the staff, the entire Yo Mom! archive, the malfunctioning spell-check program. I mean, just look at what you'd get. You'd get a paper that runs group e-mails as articles on its front page. You'd get an editor in chief, George Bakan, who in recent weeks has reportedly spiked two stories that would have been critical of the gay health leadership. C'mon, you've got so many good newspapers--the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Boston Globe--that a really bad newspaper would be a nice change of pace, don't you think?

OK, I can see this is going to be a tough sell. Tell you what. What if we raise this to the national level? Let's say this: I'll throw in most of our national gay leaders, too, provided you can tell me who any of them are and what they do. These men and women will also be no problem to have around--they're very quiet.

Still not interested? Let me just total it all up for you: You have the potential to walk away with a cadre of poorly performing community leaders, awful newspapers, and a handful of timid national leaders whose names and accomplishments no one really knows.

No, wait. You have the Democratic Party already, don't you?

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