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| Christian Grantham was a student activist in the late 90s and later was a consultant to domestic policy forums for the Clinton Administration as well as events for HRC and GLAAD. | |||
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March 15, 2004
"I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign-policy matters with war on my mind." - President Bush, Meet The Press, Feb. 8, 2004
After Janet Jackson exposed her right breast at the Super Bowl, the federal government answered the call of outraged conservatives. Michael Powell, the FCC Chairman, quickly echoed that outrage. Despite his public pronouncements of indecency, I can't help but think Michael Powell, like most drunk, male Super Bowl fans, secretly craves breasts. I guess America is queerer than I thought.
There is nothing more frightening to gay men and devout Christians than titties. This fact always screwed up my gaydar in college.
Attorney General John Ashcroft is so frightened by titties, he had a prominent statue in the Justice Department draped with over $8,000 worth of curtains. To put that in context, that's enough fabric to toss a burkha over every elected female official in U.S. Congress. Any gay man knows that's a lot of curtains.
If Janet Jackson was the shocking appetizer, then Howard Stern, Jews and gays are the main course for rabid Christian conservatives this election cycle.
By now it ought to be clear that when President Bush thinks about domestic policy, he has a different kind of war on his mind. President Bush's strategy for diverting the national dialogue from important domestic policy issues this year amounts to nothing less than a culture war.
The Republican party's base of Christian conservatives couldn't be happier with President Bush's divisive election strategy. Fresh from spending $8 a head to watch Hollywood depict Jews as "Christ killers," they clearly want more blood. Luckily, President Bush has about half as much money as Mel Gibson to deliver the cultural scourging his party base hysterically craves.
The cultural icons are rich for the pickings in President Bush's culture war.
The 15 million listeners of shock-jock radio icon Howard Stern are getting a daily dose of Bush-bashing following Clear Channel yanking his show from 6 major market stations. Call it a "pre-emptive strike." Stern calls it censorship. Famous for being fined by the FCC for what Stern called a "doody joke" in the 80s, Stern continues to lament Bush's culture war daily. Just this morning, Stern talked about how he gave money online to the John Kerry campaign.
President Bush's divisive support for an amendment to the United States Constitution to deny equal marriage rights to gay and lesbian Americans is the icing on the cake. The discriminatory proposal is a regrettable turn for an increasingly radical conservative base. The Republican Party has long championed amendments expanding American principles of fairness and equality, as the GOP website proudly proclaims.
Never has the Republican party seemed so in touch with the American people than when Vice President Dan Quayle lamented fictional television characters for raising kids in a single parent home. With moderate Republicans cowering in silence during this culture war, the Republican party seems more obsessed with titties, Jews, gays and Howard Stern. If President Bush's culture war goes as well as it did for his father, perhaps Bush will find more time to spend at the "Western White House."
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