That’s how iTunes showed the description for this week’s episode of This American Life. Stupidly funny.

For the record, the full description reads, “The story of how the American Psychiatric Association decided in 1973 that homosexuality was no longer a mental illness.”

How did I miss David McAlmont for so long? He’s got an incredible three-octave range, and he’s been singing as an OUT gay man since the early 90′s. WTF!?

He’s shown above in a still frame singing a James Bond cover song, “Diamonds Are Forever.” The video is below.

in case it hadn’t passed through your FB feed, the self-explanatory group, “I bet we can find 1,000,000 People who Support Same Sex Marriage,” surpassed its goal by the end of 11 days, and is still going strong.

so i guess the question is whether we have a really big choir preaching to itself, or if this kind of action really gets noticed and influences any kind of change.

In the aftermath of the Super Bowl, it’s time to revisit this “Men on Football” sketch from 1992′s In Living Color:

“The books has been read, and the library is closed!”

(h/t: Joe. My. God.)

“I mean, rather than campaigning for the right to serve in the military, I am going to organize a gang of faggots to extend the right to be ineligible for military service to all of humanity.” So sayeth IOZ, and I heartily concur!

Makes me wonder what that dusty old Supreme Court ruling, Loving v Virginia, really means:

Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

Could the voters of Virginia have voted in 1968 to amend their state constitution, to reinstate their ban on interracial marriage?

I love me some Fran Lebowitz. Was just reminded of this quote (citation needed!) today:

If you removed all of the homosexuals and homosexual influence from what is generally regarded as American culture, you would pretty much be left with “Let’s Make a Deal”

She rocks!

Walter Benn Michaels writes a trenchant analysis of race, racism, class, and classism in the London Review of Books. For those of you who won’t read the whole thing (but please, do!), an excerpt follows below. I take one of his chief points to be the contention that our attempt to address racism, sexism, and homophobia distract us from the crucial need to focus on economic injustice and inequality in our society.

[I]t would be a mistake to think that because the US is a less racist, sexist and homophobic society, it is a more equal society. In fact, in certain crucial ways it is more unequal than it was 40 years ago… [E]ven if we succeeded completely in eliminating the effects of racism and sexism, we would not thereby have made any progress towards economic equality. A society in which white people were proportionately represented in the bottom quintile (and black people proportionately represented in the top quintile) would not be more equal; it would be exactly as unequal. It would not be more just; it would be proportionately unjust.

An obvious question, then, is how we are to understand the fact that we’ve made so much progress in some areas while going backwards in others. And an almost equally obvious answer is that the areas in which we’ve made progress have been those which are in fundamental accord with the deepest values of neoliberalism, and the one where we haven’t isn’t. We can put the point more directly by observing that increasing tolerance of economic inequality and increasing intolerance of racism, sexism and homophobia – of discrimination as such – are fundamental characteristics of neoliberalism. Hence the extraordinary advances in the battle against discrimination, and hence also its limits as a contribution to any left-wing politics. The increased inequalities of neoliberalism were not caused by racism and sexism and won’t be cured by – they aren’t even addressed by – anti-racism or anti-sexism.

My point is not that anti-racism and anti-sexism are not good things. It is rather that they currently have nothing to do with left-wing politics, and that, insofar as they function as a substitute for it, can be a bad thing. American universities are exemplary here: they are less racist and sexist than they were 40 years ago and at the same time more elitist. The one serves as an alibi for the other: when you ask them for more equality, what they give you is more diversity. The neoliberal heart leaps up at the sound of glass ceilings shattering and at the sight of doctors, lawyers and professors of colour taking their place in the upper middle class. Whence the many corporations which pursue diversity almost as enthusiastically as they pursue profits, and proclaim over and over again not only that the two are compatible but that they have a causal connection – that diversity is good for business. But a diversified elite is not made any the less elite by its diversity and, as a response to the demand for equality, far from being left-wing politics, it is right-wing politics.

The invaluable Pam Spaulding (of Pam’s House Blend) is guest-blogging for Glenn Greenwald this week. (For those out of that particular “know,” Pam is an out & proud woman of color who hosts some of the most insightful and respectful discussions of race, gender, and sexuality over at The Blend).

Pam highlights the upcoming comedy/documentary produced by Chris Rock, called Good Hair. Have a look:

Mrs. Betty Bowers – America’s Best Christian^™ – explains traditional marriage:

Do NOT miss this!!!