"Time Magazine" goes from the 'Gay Mafia' to the 'Gay Enemies List'

What's up with Time Magazine and gay issues? Last month, they published the latest negative screed by out journalist John Cloud, an article about the "Gay Mafia", and this week the magazine is back with a piece by Alison Stateman titled "What Happens If You're on the Gay 'Enemies List'".

O-o-o-hhh. Sounds ominous, doesn't it? Like maybe we're going to "whack" our enemies Tony Soprano-style. Because if there is any group that has the power and backbone to intimidate folks into doing what we want, it's the gay community.

Yeah, right. Find out what it really means after the jump!

As we all know, what we've been doing since election day is exercising our constitutional right to not be doormats by protesting in front of Mormon Temples, marching in the streets, and publicizing the names of those who bankrolled the rollback of our constitutionally guaranteed rights (something not done in American history before or since Prohibition).

And for that we get compared to one of America's more infamous instances of corruption and intimidation — Richard Nixon's "Enemies List"?

Thanks so much Time for that thoughtful, balanced journalism.

If you read the article, you'll notice that the author doesn't actually use the term "Enemies List", but that Time's editors decided to use it to set the tone for the piece which basically seems to amount to "Those gays are getting uppity and need to be put back in their place."

Of course, what is really going on is that we're tired of being "nice gays", going around with our hat in our hand, eyes downcast as we beg for some equality.

For those who might not recall, Richard Nixon — a crook driven from the White House in ignominy — kept an "Enemies List" of those whom he persecuted by using the federal government, including the IRS, to harass those he disliked.

I'm sure you see the connection between us and him, right?

That's hardly the article's only flaw. According to Statemen, we're targeting African Americans because during some protests some gay people have directed racial epithets at some black people. Now even though every gay rights organization in the country, not to mention the vast majority of gay people, abhor and have spoken out against such behavior, Time is perfectly justified in devoting one entire paragraph of a six paragraph article to this topic because that really is the big issue involved in Prop 8's passage.

After all, whenever Time writes about religious institutions such as the Mormon Church, the Catholic Church, and the Southern Baptists preaching against us from the pulpit, funding anti-gay campaigns and pretty much doing all they can to make sure we have no rights, they always go out of the way to point out how many Christians use the word "faggot", discriminate against us and gay-bash, right?

The article also ominously describes how we are publishing lists of Prop 8 donors on the web and thereby exposing individuals and organizations who donated and — get this!— urging people "not to patronize their businesses or services". Have you ever heard of anything so devious in all your life? Even Nixon wasn't this horrible. Why we're even naming individuals including "dentists, accountants, and veterinarians" who gave a "few" thousand dollars to take away our rights. (The article later notes — without any irony — that Yes on 8 groups had proudly published their own lists of donors beforehand.)

But Statemen saves the final paragraph for her best bit of slanted writing:

"It's really awful," says Frank Schubert, campaign manager for Yes on Proposition 8. "No matter what you think of Proposition 8, we ought to respect people's right to participate in the political process. It strikes me as quite ironic that a group of people who demand tolerance and who claim to be for civil rights are so willing to be intolerant and trample on other people's civil rights."

No, he's not kidding, boys and girls. Schubert's the aggrieved party here because by legitimately protesting against those taking away our rights, we're the ones being intolerant. Too bad Statemen couldn't be bothered to write an article less intent on painting us as thugs than the minority who just had a state constitution amended to exclude us.