Of course, changes in FCC regulations are just the tip of the iceberg. All across the country, right-wing pressure groups are lobbying corporations to slight their gay employees and gay consumers. Recently Microsoft proved that even the most powerful company in the world has no spine when it comes to the threat of a boycott by Christian fundamentalists. Microsoft ultimately reversed their stand and came out in favor of equality for gay people again, but Exxon, Ford, Kraft, and virtually every movie and television studio in Hollywood are currently under assault by an astonishingly energized and activated right-wing. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family radio program commands a world-wide following of 150 million. And when he talks, his listeners listen – and make phone calls and write letters and send emails.

The one issue that gets Dobson and his minions most upset is – you guessed it! – gay people.

And Dobson is the head of just one of dozens of such right-wing pressure groups.

Needless to say, the corporations that control the movie and television studios and publishing companies haven’t been making gay entertainment because it’s the right thing to do. They’ve been doing it because it has made them money. If pressure on advertisers makes it so they start LOSING money, Will and Grace can kiss their bony asses goodbye. Last fall, even before the election, GLAAD reported the lowest number of scripted gay characters on broadcast television since they’d started keeping track in 1996.

In other words, even when right-wing pressure doesn’t result in actual changes to law and policy, it has a chilling effect on popular gay entertainment. What television executive needs the headache that will come from including even a secondary gay character in a new television show? What librarian wants the hassle of defending herself against accusations of child abuse just so she can stock the latest gay teen novel on her shelves?

All this seems alarmist, you say? Well, keep in mind that Emperor Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith spent years getting his ducks in a row, before he finally took on Yoda and the Jedi Knights.

Right-wing Republicans have been arranging their ducks too. And now they feel their ducks are in perfect order, and this is their time to strike.

Hey, they call this a culture WAR for a reason. It’s going to be very nasty, we’re all going to have to work our butts off fighting them, and unlike in Star Wars, there’s no guarantee we’re going to blow up the Death Star at the end.

We find all this extremely depressing. But in America, 2005, it may be the single most important part of the Big Gay Picture.

Two Cheap Bastards are Brent Hartinger and Michael Jensen, partners since 1992. Brent is the author of the gay teen novel, Geography Club, and its sequel, The Order of the Poison Oak (www.brenthartinger.com). Michael Jensen is the author of the gay historical novels Frontiers and Firelands (www.michaeljensen.com).

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