The Nation puts gays in a skirt. posted by Richard Seymour

You know the refrain. If a male issues slightly effeminate signals, he must be, well ... one of those. God love him, he probably likes to try on make-up and prance around in dresses. I'm awful sorry to hear about your boy being queer, Ethel. We could have a couple of studs over at the farm break him in. Etcetera.

Well, it turns out Abraham Lincoln was gay . How does one deal with such a revelation?

If you work for The Nation, you whack a pair of breasts on him, give him panties, a bottom shaped like a luscious peach, and a pair of lustrous black heels. Hence, Babe Lincoln . Because, as you and I know, a homosexual is an invert, a poor sod who hasn't quite grasped his/her gender role. Some wires got crossed, an X chromosome dropped a leg, the maintenance guy couldn't turn up to fix it, and so what should have been a woman emerged with a cock. The cock, as any fule know, is the man's prize for being a man, and it seems unfair that a woman may purloin it before even having the courtesy to be born.

Enough delusional nonsense. The notion that homosexuals are simply 'inverts' who have been issued with the wrong genitalia and hormone balance has long been disproven. Consider: in 1948, when men where men and gals were in the kitchen, 37% of the men privately interviewed in a study by Alfred C Kinsey admitted to having fooled around with other men. That's right, they fucked, sucked and licked all manner of things from the old rubbery doughnut to the seed-sac, swinging like a hairy pork medallion. I am fairly certain that there was cuddling, caressing and tender kissing involved as well. This, bear in mind, was a rigorous scientific study and has been amply confirmed over the years. Men who fought wars and wrestled with grizzlies also displayed erotic and romantic affection for other men. Incidentally, it also happens to be the case that most men who like to dress in women's clothes and put on make-up prefer women. (I bet it makes a wank more interesting).

The sterile categories of heterosexual and homosexual are pukeworthy in their innocence, and endearing in their idiocy. That dichotomy is a sort of sexual Cold War in which all the various centrifugal and centripetal forces are subsumed into two great camps, the gay and the straight: Frottage? That's fine, if a little eccentric. Bum-sex with a woman? Well... can't approve of that, but it isn't gay. Nail varnish and lipstick? For a man? Get thee to a nunnery! Let him paint an inch thick, and send him to buggery! Goats? Well, male or female...? Do you intend to procreate, or will the green hills be speckled with waste prophylactics and the spent juices of hedonistic indulgence?

To side-step the obvious for a second, I want to remark on The Nation's response to the protest about their stupid cartoon. Doug Ireland , a long-time gay radical who has written for The Nation, fired off some admirably vitriolic notes to its editor and staff, while a flurry of e-mails and missives from the readers led to a heated debate in the offices of this highly regarded progressive magazine. Some wanted to acknowledge the mistake and get on with the good work that The Nation has been doing for some decades. Instead, what happened was that they introduced a series of readers letters and invited the cartoonist to respond. Originally, the editors introduced the response as follows:

We received many letters from readers offended by Robert Grossman's "Babe Lincoln" (Jan. 24). His cartoon was intended as a comment on the controversy stirred by C.A. Tripp's new book, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, in which Tripp argues that Lincoln was homosexual. We leave historians to debate Tripp's thesis, as we leave readers and Grossman to discuss the cartoon's significance below. We regret it if the cartoon demeaned homosexuals, transgender people or even Log Cabin Republicans. --The Editors

That last sentence in particular registers a serious demoralisation and also political degeneration. This is an era in America in which gays are told by Democrats that they are asking for too much, too soon (there is a timetable for human rights?), while they are assured by Republicans that they do not fit into the Christian run of things unless they happen to have the monumental advantage of being Dick Cheney's daughter. The lachrymose Clinton apparently [ie, according to Kerry sources] told John Kerry to attack gay marriages and run a homophobic campaign. You would think The Nation would understand the purchase of this and not play silly buggers. The final sentence does appear to have changed so that it reads:

We regret if the cartoon unintentionally offended anyone.

Hardly better from a moral standpoint, but proof at least that the protests had wiped the condescending smirk from their faces. Yet, it remains totally unsatisfactory. It began, if you ask me, with the political compromise over Kerry. The Nation begged Nader not to run, would have donated several body parts if he would only withdraw and fall behind Deputy Dawg. So terrified were they by Bush and his various dogs that they would get behind anything that didn't reek of the pachyderm. So, they acquiesced in the game of the Democratic Leadership Council, surrendered their political nous and sold their souls to arbiters of 'mainstream' liberalism. Now, having surrendered electorally on the key social and economic issues, they appear to be casual with even those minimal issues that liberals continued to associate themselves with in the 1990s - gay rights, racial equality and women's liberation.

Most gay people in the US don't quite resemble anyone in Will & Grace, the 'edgy' sitcom of liberal Middle America. They are not chiselled, well-toned and well-heeled. They are not upper-class yuppies who find life-choices sooooo difficult. They are probably mastering that lathe next to you, or driving the school bus (heaven forfend!). They could well be selling sweeties or hotdogs, or allowing the pet dog to casually shit on your lawn. There are no giveaway breasts or panties, no flip airs and graces, no heels or pert bums. If the most respected liberal magazine in America hasn't figured that out, or has forgotten it, there is ample cause for a boycott.

Update: Read the lapidary Gore Vidal here and more from the laconic Doug Ireland here .