Also.Also.Also: Rappers Saying Things About the Gays and Other Stories We Missed This Week

I wanted to write this article yesterday, but it was National Be Late To Something Day. Here’s the stories we missed this week!

Did you know an election is happening? It is! The Campaign for American Values released a video about it because gay marriage makes them feel weird.

Meanwhile, the DNC this week was kind of the event of a lifetime because Michelle Obama’s arms. Come one come all, young and old! Let’s all talk about how Mitt Romney wants to destroy the last shreds of LGBT rights. No matter how easy it is to get laid as an undercover gay Republican at the RNC, it is undeniable that the DNC was a big ol’ gay lovefest:

Addressing the Democratic National Convention on Sept. 4, the openly gay treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, said, “The Democratic Party under the leadership of Barack Obama has dramatically improved the lives of millions of lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual Americans and at no cost to anyone else.”

Andrew Tobias, addressing thousands of delegates, talked about politics, equality and being out and proud.

He said, “In college, I thought I was the only guy in the world who liked other guys. Later I found there was someone else like me, our 26-year-old resident tutor. He and I never talked about it at the time. No one talked about being gay back then. People killed themselves over being gay. Tragically, some kids still do. But, the progress we have made. Eight weeks ago, I attended that young tutor’s wedding! To a guy! He and I never talked about it at the time. Love that had been unspeakable 46 years ago was celebrated by hundreds of people — straight and gay, surfers and senators.

But if you’re looking to think to yourself, “chuckle chuckle ha ha” you could always read about the black lesbian who is probably voting for Mitt Romney. Or maybe you would rather feel super awkward about the anti-gay campaign invoking the spirit of Mussolini in Italy. I bet all of these homophobes are already thinking about the shit they can’t do in Canada anymore since they just stopped an anti-gay Lesbanese pop star from even visiting.

But none of this matters because how are the rappers doing is really the important news, you know? The hip-hop game is really just tumultuous to be honest. This week Stevie Wonder said Frank Ocean is just confused. Nicki Minaj said she was voting for Mitt Romney (sort of. In a lyric.) and then we tried to convince ourselves it was not a true statement! Kanye West went to his first gender theory class, then tweeted about the word “bitch” and gave me hella feelings.

Then Azealia Banks released the video for her new single, “1991!”

But this week we also lost feminist writer Shulamith Firestone at 67. Pia Sundhage, lesbian coach of the US Women’s Soccer Team, stepped down. But the new Canadian Medical Associati0n President is an out lesbian because when one door closes, another opens. And if the new one takes you toward Scientology, take a step back into the hallway:

At one time, Relkin had convinced some officials in the church that Scientology needed to reach out to the gay community in a big way. He talked the church into printing thousands of booklets to hand out in West Hollywood and other gay enclaves. But just before that happened, higher-level executives learned about the plan and quashed it, telling actress Anne Archer that she would not, in fact, appear at a launch party for the new pamphlet.

Relkin was crushed. He spent the next year and a half going through intense Scientology interrogations that convinced him the entire debacle had been his own fault. Then, over the last four years of his life, he continued to struggle through his church training, trying to understand where he’d gone wrong.

Two days before he died, Relkin sent a short e-mail to a friend.

“I think my new policy when talking to Flag staff will be to just blurt out ‘I’m gay.’ And watch them run,” he wrote.

Whatever. We all have so much to learn from Melissa Harris-Perry anyway.

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Carmen

Carmen spent six years at Autostraddle, ultimately serving as Straddleverse Director, Feminism Editor and Social Media Co-Director. She is now the Consulting Digital Editor at Ms. and writes regularly for DAME, the Women’s Media Center, the National Women’s History Museum and other prominent feminist platforms; her work has also been published in print and online by outlets like BuzzFeed, Bitch, Bust, CityLab, ElixHER, Feministing, Feminist Formations, GirlBoss, GrokNation, MEL, Mic and SIGNS, and she is a co-founder of Argot Magazine. You can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr or in the drive-thru line at the nearest In-N-Out.

Carmen has written 919 articles for us.

28 Comments

  1. Ugh that ad, seriously.

    Also, Melissa Harris-Perry is amazing. I can’t even. There’s no way I could get my point across so succinctly while being so angry, I would just turn into a pile of garbled syllables and table-pounding. Good for her.

    • OMG Agreed. I love Melissa Harris-Perry so much. She’s not afraid to get out there and get on her soap box and she is so eloquent while doing it.

  2. I thought the ad was a spoof until the last five seconds… political campaigns in the states are just ridiculous

  3. Mr West, if you’re not sure whether it’s ok to call a woman “___”, ask yourself whether you would call a man or genderless individual “___”. If not, then “___” is sexism. Same rule applies to racism, ageism, ableism, etc…

  4. In addition to the “maybe voting Romney” thing, everybody I knew was freaking out yesterday because apparently Nicki Minaj admitted that she just pretended to be bisexual for attention… is that actually a thing?

    • Yeah, she fessed up to that farce well over a year ago. Oh well. At least she’s admitting she’s a liar who did it to sell records.

    • i was under the impression that the nicki minaj thing was a little more complicated than that – i read a while ago that it was assumed her pr team/publicist/whatever advised her to back away from all possible homosexiness, and that’s how she did it. that idea makes a little more sense to me, because homosexuality is not particularly popular in the rap genre, she was just coming on the scene when she talked about bisexuality, and then later she actually got a pr team. but i have no idea what really happened! i just wanted to write down a version of events that i’d heard. obviously all of it’s hearsay and we’ll never really know the extent of any possible gayness on the part of nicki minaj.

      (until i bone her and publish a tell-all on as)

      • Only male homosexuality. Rappers seem to write songs about their “girlfriends having girlfriends” every other week. They have this threesome fantasy when it comes to women but have always had problems with gay men. A few rappers are coming around though so it’s not all of them.

  5. Ohmygod I laughed so hard at that Campaign for American Values ad. That is some weak sauce. It really really looks like a spoof on SNL. I’m still giggling.

  6. Ya’ll can we talk about how my favorite part of the ad is when they zoom in on him putting down his coffee cup? GET A CLOSE UP OF THAT CUP A’JOE.

    What does it all mean? Google, which is always right duh obvi, tells me that coffee symbolizes connection to oneself and the community. Now I’m even more confuzzled. I just… I can’t.

  7. Nicki Minaj is retard, don’t like her that much anymore, not because she’s all of a sudden conservative, who the hell she fooling, she changes her mind more than she changes her looks, you wait next week she’ll become an independent or worker’s party, no longer republican…lmao and Melissa Harris-Perry is an awesome cool lady, very enlightening!

    Whose seeing Azealia tonight at MAC on Soho, nyc? I was planning on going but I can’t won’t make it down in time, in class…boo! Put photos on the interwebs!

  8. That ad: I was waiting for the camera to pan over to one of the teenage kids rolling their eyes and saying, “Whatever. Aren’t you two jackholes getting a divorce ’cause Dad banged your sister while you were at that weekend church retreat?” And THEN cut to voiceover.

    #onlyinmydreams

  9. If that ad wasn’t so outright insulting, I’d be laughing right now. Poor production value, bad actors, stupid cinematography, boring/vague script. Whoever made this clearly has never actually worked in commercials before, and if they have, I’m embarrassed for them. I give it a Hollywood thumbs DOWN.

  10. isn’t stevie wonder a big old Queen?

    and i mean Queen with as much respect and love as when I call all the queers i love GIRL btw.

  11. Lol, that ad! It’s as if they think they’ll be forced into a gay marriage!

    Good to hear that the CMA has a lesbian president. However, what’s up with that pro-life site? Messed up opinions in those comments.

    Looved that 90’s throwback video. Reminded me a lot of Aaliyah.

  12. right on to the CMA – and maybe they have found a new leader that is more interested in medicine and less interested in privatising Canadian healthcare, but WHY when I clicked on the link was I taken to an anti-choice site that is ranting about how evil the CMA is? I’m kinda confused…

Comments are closed.