John Carlson (KVI, m-f, 3-6p) led the hypermanic clucking of his Shocked Troops Thursday, bemoaning a billboard not yet mounted at Melrose & Pine on Capitol Hill, Seattle's gay and bohemian enclave.
It's one of a series of national ads for Gay.com, a site selling personal ads, and travel services to gays and lesbians.
Why all the overheated bundling of the collective KVI underwear?
The ad, which can be viewed on Carlson's page at KVI.com, pictures two buff studs cuddling in bed with an American flag girding their presumably hunky loins. Tagged underneath, it reads "Come Together." It's part of a marketing campaign that uses gay solidarity and "inclusiveness" as a hook to sell, sell, sell.
Carlson railed indignantly, that it's "gratuitous flag desecration" and "a disgrace."
He shared the concern with PI columnist Susan Paynter who wrote a column Thursday with a Biddy Factor rivaling Carlson's.
No different, (is it?) than the other unabashed exploitation of troops and flag since 9/11. Wrapped in Old Glory, self-promoting media wannabe icons like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Carlson and other local con-talkers perform unnatural acts and set high the standards of patriotic correctness to marshal their pious troops and find the rest of us insufficient if not traitorous.
It's ironic that the signs are contracted to Clearchannel Outdoor, billboarding subsidiary of Clearchannel Communications, the powerful media giant which dominates so much of the radio dial with 1,200 radio stations, 37 TV stations, and investments in 240 radio stations world wide.
They're well-invested in right-wing talk outlets but have, of late, gotten into liberal talk as well.This is strictly business, of course, and not out of any civic sense to provide balance; but it might signal that lib-talk is seen by the big boys as financially viable.
Clearchannel doesn't own KVI, so Carlson encouraged his listeners to call them to complain.
Besides how morally degenerate the ads are with their blaring implication of male/male sex to orgasm, Carlson had another message about political strategy, which was also the burden of Paynter's song.
This explains, he said, why Republicans won the presidency and the Congress. "Liberals don't understand America."
Carlson and Paynter asked: how can gays be so stupid and sexual and outrageous when the State Supreme Court is considering their right to marry? Just when they're trying so hard to convince everyone that their "gay agenda" is so respectable, they come up with this.
It always benefits right-wingers to paint their enemies as an evil whole. Gays are not monolithic any more than are the media, the TeleTubbies, Canadians, the French, Vegans or any group they routinely trash. Unfortunately, there's no Gay Agenda Commission to decide who should be gay or who may speak for them (if there were, Log Cabin Republicans would've been exiled to Yakima 20 years ago).
Gay political activists can no more control Gay.com's ads than Republicans can control Rev. Fred Phelp's God Hates Fags Ministries.
This is an old tactic of the right. For years, Christian evangelists videotaped the most outrageous gay pride parades for use in fundraising out in the hinterlands where people have never had contact with de-closeted queers. They think homos are all Dykes On Bikes or slave-bitches with nipple shirts and rhinestone dog collars.
Carlson called on gays to police themselves, implying that if they wanted full rights of citizenship, they need to discipline themselves like the Republican Party and stay on message.
Carlson knows that's not possible. His real intention was to cynically link the unpatriotic, hedonistic flag desecrating, sodomites to the serious, normal and committed citizens suing the State of Washington to ensure America keeps its promise.
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