GLR November-December 2024

The org. is GLAAD —née the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation—and the piece describes a pattern of lavish spend ing on luxury travel and extravagant expense accounts for top staff, notably CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. Armed with bills from ski resorts and home remodeling companies, the piece makes the case that GLAAD is more-or-less rotten to the core. Keep in mind that the prototype for GLAAD , founded in 1985, was the Anti Defamation League of the B’nai B’rith, whose grim mission it is to root out anti-Semitism wherever it lurks. In contrast, GLAAD is known for its star-studded award ceremonies in New York and L.A. Yet, as recently as 2013, the org. was broke and in debt—until the arrival of Ms. Ellis, who had the idea to turn GLAAD into a fundraising machine through the use of high-pro file events and celebrity guests / award winners (Ellen, Oprah, et al.) to justify those $500-a-plate dinners. And it worked! Rev enue quadrupled in a few years and has continued to spike, which is what allows for those glamorous resorts and giant salaries (Ellis’ new contract includes an annual $1.3 million compensation package through 2027). But here’s the thing: while GLAAD still engages in a few anti-defamation activities, such as a “Studio Responsibility Index,” clearly its main mis sion is to hand out media awards on both coasts to gay-friendly celebs. But these are also its main fundraising events, which means that GLAAD ’s core mission is, in effect, fundraising. “Every Sperm Is Sacred!” Thus declared a memorable song in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life , a jab at the Catholic Church’s opposition to birth control. One was reminded of this anthem by a legal case in which a sperm donor is suing a les bian couple for parental rights over the child that he sired sev eral years ago. While the couple had agreed to inform their progeny of her paternity, they specifically ruled out co-parent ing. This has not prevented stud Chris Edrington from asserting such a right based on Minnesota state law. A judge ruled that the statute is there to protect the donor from parentage claims, not to be a “sword” for the donor to assert such a claim. The ruling takes us back to an early lesbian-feminist goal of achieving in dependence from men, and men’s relentless unwillingness to let go. Okay, so the women needed a man for one microscopic cell; the judge ruled that this contribution did not entitle him to muscle his way back into their lives. Sucking At It It’s getting harder to be a man in America, least wise a straight man who treasures his masculine bona fides. They keep thinking up new rules! Now we learn that it’s con sidered a little suspect for a man to drink from a straw in pub lic or to eat ice cream; who knew? But so it has been decreed by Fox News and its host Jesse Watters, who ridiculed VP can didate Tim Walz for violating the straw taboo. And if it sounds like they’re just making up these rules as they go along, Wat ters seems to have it all worked out—no straws, no ice cream, and no corn dogs, we assume—and then he waits for someone to be tripped up by the latest decree. Still, going after Coach Walz on this account seems foolhardy; the easy rebuttal is that he’s so confident of his masculinity that he can even get away with sucking on a straw. Of course, all of this is happening under the overarching rule that stuffing your face in front of a camera is never a good look. Such is the price one pays when running for high office in America.

November–December 2024

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