The Wockner Wire
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Veteran gay journalist Rex Wockner flaunts his opinions in
"The Wockner Wire." Check in every Friday for a dose of politics and
entertainment according to Rex.
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MMOW Squeaks By
Somewhere between 125,000 and 800,000 people turned out for the
controversial Millennium March on Washington April 30, depending on
whether you believe the gays who called a boycott, the cops, the media or
the march organizers.
Considering how troubled the organizing process was, I'm surprised and
glad they pulled it off to the extent they did. It would have been
majorly embarrassing and a setback to the
movement if the turnout had been any smaller than 200,000, which is the
figure my independent observers came up with as well.
The 1993 march maybe had close to 1 million. The fear this year was that
the march had taken such a drubbing in the gay press that the result
could have been less than 100,000 attendees. All kinds of gay
organizations, gay elected officials and even the venerable Bay Area
Reporter denounced the march and/or called for it to be boycotted.
If the organizers had been even somewhat less inept, there would have
been over a million people this time. While 200,000 is not an unmitigated
disaster, let's hope it taught the haughty planners an important lesson
so that we'll never again suffer the mess of scores and scores of gay
groups denouncing an event designed to show America our strength and
numbers.
(Yes, one could argue that 200,000 is pathetic. After all, there are more
people than that every year at local pride parades in Toronto, Montreal,
New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sydney. But the AP
story that ran in most daily newspapers said "hundreds of thousands" and
the huge picture that ran on the front page of my local daily showed the
Mall full of homosexuals. Just be happy the AP reporter didn't dig any
deeper.)
Free Dan Savage
You remember syndicated sex advice columnist Dan Savage's piece for
Salon.com where he talked about infiltrating Gary Bauer's presidential
campaign in Iowa and spreading flu germs around
Gary's office. He also claimed he voted as a Republican in the Iowa
neighborhood caucuses.
For a while it looked like Dan might face assault and hate-crime charges
for the flu business until he confessed he hadn't really licked coffee
cups and doorknobs or otherwise tried to infect Bauer or his staff with a
virus.
But it seems Dan -- a Seattle resident -- really did register to vote in
the caucuses, and Iowa is plenty pissed off about it.
Polk County authorities have filed felony and misdemeanor charges against
Dan that could land him in prison for six years. An arrest warrant has
been issued with bail set at $11,700.
This is pure silliness.
First off, Dan is a journalist and was trying to prove that it's easy to
vote fraudulently in the all-important Iowa caucuses. He succeeded, and
that's something Iowa should be worried about.
Second, Dan is one of America's most intriguing journalists and some
people are special enough that we cut them slack.
Third, there are real crimes (suppose Gary Bauer fraudulently registered
10,000 out-of-state supporters and thereby won the Republican caucuses)
and then there are crimes that aren't really crimes because of special
circumstances.
Suppose I'm working on a story about illegal aliens jumping the fence
from Tijuana to San Diego, and my photographer and I jump the fence with
the people we've been following on their journey all the way from Chiapas.
Yes, we technically entered the U.S. illegally. But given that we could
have walked a block and entered legally and that we were journalists
working on a story, should we be punished to the full extent of the law?
You may say yes. No special treatment for reporters or for extraordinary
situations.
I think I disagree. I shall do what I can to see that crusading gay
journalist Dan Savage does not end up behind bars.
Racist and Misogynist
I knew I'd get called these two words because of last week's column
wherein I dissed the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force for hiring as its
new executive director a woman who divorced her husband last year and has
been out of the closet less than one year.
"Racist" because Elizabeth Toledo is Mexican; "misogynist" because she's
female.
Please give me a break. Anyone who's been out less than a year is in gay
diapers, is wearing gay training wheels. Heading up NGLTF when you came
out less than a year ago is like getting appointed to the Supreme Court
while you're still in law school.
I assume Ms. Toledo is qualified for the job in every other way but
someone who's been uncloseted only a few months cannot possibly have the
gay experience one should have to lead one of the nation's oldest,
biggest and most important gay organizations.
Where does she stand on entrapment of gay men in cruising areas? How many
friends has she lost to AIDS? How many times has she been to the Michigan
Womyn's Music Festival? Has she ever marched in a gay-pride parade? If
she'd return my calls, I'd ask her these questions. Maybe she doesn't
know who I am because she's never read any of the 250 gay papers I've
written for.
The fact is that a dozen of the 20 applicants for the job were qualified
for it, according to the group's board of directors. And yet, they chose
a neophyte.
Why would they do this? Given that it's the NGLTF board we're dealing
with, I'm going to say it's because Elizabeth is a lesbian (the previous
five executive directors were lesbians) and
because she is "of color" (something NGLTF employees are "encouraged" to
be).
If you'd like to send the PC Police to arrest me, I live in the
University Heights neighborhood of San Diego, California.
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