Gay Drama to be banned - Allen plays President Bush's henchman
As reported earlier in Queer Thoughts, Allen is serious about his efforts to ban anything that has gay content including the books of some of America's the worlds greatest writers.
Allen a Republican from Alabama has introduced a bill that will prevent state funds from purchasing any books or other materials that "promote homosexuality". This modern day "KKK" member has decided that taxpayers' money to support "positive depictions of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle" is out of line.
Allen told the Guardian he decided to do something on election day, November 2, 2004,"It was election day," he explains. Last month, "14 states passed referendums defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman". Exit polls asked people what they considered the most important issue, and "moral values in this country" were "the top of the list".
Allen went on to tell the
Guardian, "Traditional family values are under attack," They've been under attack "for the last 40 years". The enemy, this time, is not al-Qaida. The axis of evil is "Hollywood, the music industry". We have an obligation to "save society from moral destruction". We have to prevent liberal librarians and trendy teachers from "re-engineering society's fabric in the minds of our children". We have to "protect Alabamians".
If Allen is successful, future generations of Alabamians will be "protected from" material and or art by, "Leonardo di Vinci, Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Eleanor Roosevelt, Franz Schubert, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Lorraine Hansberry, W.H. Auden, Sir Francis Bacon, Edward Albee, Aaron Copland, Benjamin Britten, Socrates, Plato, Michelangelo, Tennessee Williams, Bessie Smith and Gertrude Stein."
That is just a short list, the list of great Americans art and writing will be amazing in that it will be material unavailable Alabama libraries and schools. Plays, movies, DVD's will be banned.
If the piece has a gay character or is written by a gay person it will be banned, with one exception. Should the piece show gay's as "bad" people then it is okay! Alabama fill your boots with negative views of gays, the State will likely give you an award for your foresight in ordering such material.
Allen's bill would cut funds to theatre production may look like censorship, and smell like censorship, but "it's not censorship", Allen hastens to explain. "For instance, there's a reason for stop lights. You're driving a vehicle, you see that stop light, and I hope you stop." Who can argue with something as reasonable as stop lights? Of course, if you're gay, this particular traffic light never changes to green.
The
guardian interview goes on "But more than one gay playwright is at a stake here. Allen claims he is acting to "encourage and protect our culture". Does "our culture" include Shakespeare? I ask Allen if he would insist that copies of Shakespeare's sonnets be removed from all public libraries.
I point out to him that Romeo and Juliet was originally performed by an all-male cast, and that in Shakespeare's lifetime actors and audiences at the public theatres were all accused of being "sodomites". When Romeo wished he "was a glove upon that hand", the cheek that he fantasised about kissing was a male cheek. Next March the Alabama Shakespeare festival will be performing a new production of As You Like It, and its famous scene of a man wooing another man. The Alabama Shakespeare Festival is also the State Theatre of Alabama. Would Allen's bill cut off state funding for Shakespeare?
"Well," he begins, after a pause, "the current draft of the bill does not address how that is going to be handled. I expect details like that to be worked out at the committee stage. Literature like Shakespeare and Hammet [sic] could be left alone." Could be. Not "would be". In any case, he says, "you could tone it down". That way, if you're not paying real close attention, even a college graduate like Allen himself "could easily miss" what was going on, the "subtle" innuendoes and all.
"Dig a hole," Gerald Allen recommends, "and dump them in it."
Of course, Allen was talking about books. He was just talking about books. He never said anything about pink triangles.
Allen is George Bush's kinda guy. He has seen the president on five different occasions at the Whitehouse during the last four years.
