Does this man look gay to you?

OK, bad example. But my problem is, that seems to be a BIG DEAL on Bravo’s new fauxality competition series, “Step It Up & Dance.” 

The new series pits a bunch of leg-warmed terpsichoreans against each other in that manliest of schoolyard taunts: who can keep a time-step best.

The problem is, the judges seem to be the only ones who don’t know how gay Broadway style dancing is. Of the six male contestants, they have commented on how “womanly,” “feminine,” “unmasculine” and “not butch enough” four of them appear when they dance. The fact that those same four male dancers have basically admitted to being gay or bisexual only emphasizes the notion: We want our dancers to be light on their feet, but not light in the loafers; and those who seem gay are, by definition, effete.

Now of course there are many gay men who tend to come across as — ahem — “flamboyant;” the gay rainbow comes in many colors and we all know what butch and femme mean. What bothers me is that somehow these traits in male dancers are characterized as sissy-ish.  These guys can leap higher, spin faster and do it all longer than most pro football players, they get costumed in tights and open-neck clingy shirts and the likes of Elizabeth Berkerley are passing judgment on how convincing they are at being “straight-acting”? Does anyone even use that term anymore?

I guess what I find offensive most is that the fey label seems to bother the dancers. As one said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “I know she thinks I’m a fag but I’ll show her who I sleep with doesn’t matter on stage.” And when they do butch it up, they get loads of praise.

I guess we’re all used to straight people making generalizations about gay people. I just assumed a show on uber-gay Bravo, set in the dance world, would be more tolerant. 

Thursday the Philadelphia Gay News web site epgn.com released a wide ranging interview with Hillary Clinton. She needs a strong win in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary to keep her candidacy alive and she hopes LGBT voters will help boost her margin of victory. The interview covers topics as varied as same-sex marriage, immigration policy, the execution of gay people in the Middle East and Africa, “Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell,” gay youth and gay seniors, and more. What’s missing? Any outreach to the LGBT press from her rival Barack Obama. The Obama campaign continues to shrug off repeated requests from the LGBT press for an interview with the candidate, despite (according to PGN Publisher Mark Segal) pressure from Sen. Bob Casey, PA, who just gave his highly sought after endorsement to Obama. To make the point that Obama is ignoring gay media, PGN left a huge section of it’s print edition Page One blank. Reportedly, Casey is stressing the fact that the LGBT vote is a critical part of the cooalition the Democratric Party will need to win in November and Obama needs to court it, not ignore.

The political season is in full passion.

The partisan troops are cocked and loaded, ready to fire, intent on dispatching whoever or whatever obstructs their path to electoral victory.

Few institutions rile these egalitarian passions more than the press. LGBT press included. Over the past few weeks Dallas Voice has been slammed for “fawning over Hillary.” Indicted over our “contempt for Hillary.” “Hypocrisy” for accepting an ad from Obama. Berated for giving “way too much coverage” to Log Cabin Republicans.

Our letters tell us that we have “abandoned fair and balanced” coverage of the candidates and are now engaged in “erroneous election returns reporting.” We are “lame and arrogant.”

My reflexive response is to defend the paper. My head instructs me not to even try. I’ve learned. To engage in that kind of point-by-point, story-by-story dialogue on political coverage seldom changes opinions and frequently only reinforces the view that some pre-determined bias guides our coverage.

Suffice to say, every word carries meaning, weight, nuance and we are involved in the business of words. To try and tell a reader what that nuance should be to him or her, Democrat or Republican, only enlarges the target on my back.

Besides, I’m too busy ducking for cover.

— Robert Moore