The Gay & Lesbian Review

rates of divorce, but this tendency spills over to other religious groups living in their proximity. The apparent paradox—given their emphasis on “traditional family values”—has puzzled soci- ologists. What the study found was that evangelicals tend to marry younger than do other groups, and this is highly correlated with the rate of divorce. Early marriage often means less educational at- tainment, reduced income, money troubles, and... there goes the marriage. The AJS article doesn’t offer a morality tale—but that doesn’t prevent us from doing so. The high divorce rate among conservative Christians is due to a prudish morality that condemns premarital sex and encourages early marriage. The dearth of real sex education, plus the lack of availability of contraception, leads to elevated levels of teenage pregnancy. Then doctrine steps in to limit a young woman’s options: abortion is officially off limits, while single parenthood is frowned upon. Marriage it is, then, but as a last resort, a way to avoid worse (because “immoral”) op- tions. The very insistence upon marriage is what cheapens it and leads to divorce. That these are the folks who tend to condemn nontraditional marriages only adds irony to the paradox. Another Surprised Father It has happened again: one of the most homophobic men in the world has a gay son. This time the lucky father is Robert Mugabe, dictator-president of Zimbabwe, who once opined that homosexuals “are worse than pigs.” It was his third son, Chipape Mugabe, an MBA student at Oxford, who came out in a radio interview in the UK, offering a thoughtful ap- praisal of gay rights in his home country. But the question remains, why does every rabid homophobe end up with a gay son (or so it seems)? Assuming it’s not karma or coincidence, here’s a theory: Once it was thought that gay boys were the result of a “weak or ab- sent father”; now we know that typically it’s the gay boy who doesn’t bond with his father, preferring his mother’s world instead. At some point the father develops a deep revulsion toward this non-bonding son who refuses to take after the old man, this momma’s boy who, with the onset of adolescence, appears almost as a freak of nature. Nothing is ever said, the closet door remains shut, but the father internalizes this fear and loathing and converts it into an article of doctrine and policy, folding it into a broadly au- thoritarian ideology. And a homophobic monster is born. Kinky Caps And now, coming to you fromMobile, it’s the Pranc- ing Elites! Down main street they sashayed, part of the Christmas parade in Semmes, Alabama, a town of 2,000 that wasn’t prepared

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for the spectacle of a dance troupe of black drag queens in (Mrs.) Santa ensembles. Turns out the booking was an accident on the part of the organizing committee, the Friends of Semmes, who must have thought it was the local cheerleading squad’s annual entry. On- lookers were reported to be “outraged and appalled” by the drag queen spectacle, or

professed to be. Someone had the foresight to videotape the Elites, and the footage went viral on YouTube. So the townsfolk got their fifteen minutes; the Prancing Elites ended up booking some new gigs; and the Friends of Semmes were fired as next year’s parade organizer. Too much excitement!

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March–April 2014

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