Miss California: We Need to Be More Tolerant of People Who Say Gays Suck

The woman who won't go away calls for tolerance of anti-gays.

The New York Times business section is a great place to find advice from top executives. In Sunday's paper, Richard Anderson, chief executive of Delta Air Lines, tells how he hires his subordinates:

You want to know about their family. Where they grew up. What their parents did. Where they went to high school. What their avocations were. How many kids they had in their family. You know, what their whole background and history is.

I learned that from a C.E.O. I worked for. The C.E.O. wouldn’t really spend that much time on the résumé, but spent most of the time wanting to know everything about the person’s life, family, what they liked, where they liked to go on vacation, what their kids were like. And it gave you a really good perspective about who they were as people.

Actually, this interview gives a pretty good perspective of Mr. Anderson.

He's relatively boring, he's not particularly smart, and he's very probably breaking the law, because it's illegal to ask many of these questions during a job interview.

Virginia is for Liars

Virginia has started a publicity blitz in an effort to get more tourists to visit. Television, magazine and newspaper ads are reminding America that 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the state's motto Virginia is for Lovers, declaring it "one of the most recognizable and enduring tourism slogans in the country."

2009 also marks the fifth anniversary of HB 751, which bans all contracts between same-sex partners in Virginia. Which means gay adoption, gay marriage, domestic partnerships and civil unions are illegal.

"What the Virginia Legislature has done is a great example for other states to follow in protecting our country from counterfeit marriage," said Jan LaRue, Concerned Women for America's chief counsel. The Virginia bill is more comprehensive than the laws in other states because it bans any agreement giving gays equal rights, regardless of the name.

So remember, kids: when they say Virginia is for lovers, they mean homosexuals need not apply.

The Disney company is relatively gay-friendly. They have to be, considering they're in the entertainment field. If Disney only hired straight people, their parade floats would be made of stucco and astroturf. Fantasia would look like an animated Riverdance.

When they bought ABC, though, Disney ran into a problem. They now owned Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, a show that sends folks on vacation and builds them mansions while they're gone. Every week the show gives away half a million dollars in cash and prizes to select families.

That just happen to be heterosexual.

I watched the show off and on for a couple years, patiently waiting for a male or female couple to appear. Finally I wrote in and asked where all the gay families were. A spokesperson at ABC replied with a ridiculous email claiming they'd be happy to have a gay family on the program: they just hadn't found a good one yet. They said if I knew a deserving one I should encourage them to apply.

I immediately recognized this as bullshit. The program was startlingly efficient at finding needles in the Pitiful Haystack. They found a biker preacher with a disabled grandson, a single mother/Christian minister whose house burned down, an African-American ballet dancer with multiple sclerosis. They found Benjamin Burns, whose bone disease affects one out of every 10,000 people. They found Will Johnson, whose spinal muscular atrophy affects one out of every 20,000 people. They found Jhryve Sears, whose Krabbe disease afflicts one out of every 100,000.

They found a pair of home-schooling horse whisperers and a one-armed lobster fisherman. They found ten-year-old Kayla Woodhouse, one of the twenty-five people in the WORLD who suffer from Hereditary Sensory Autonomic Neuropathy.

But they couldn't find a deserving gay family.

A few months later, the other shoe dropped. The Smoking Gun obtained an e.mail message sent by EM:HE "family casting director" Charisse Simonian that details her unspoken requirements. In fact, Charisse had a wish list that made it crystal clear exactly who she was looking for:

-- Extraordinary Mom / Dad Recently diagnosed with ALS --
-- Family who has child w/ PROGERIA (aka "little man disease")
-- Congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis," referred to as CIPA by the few people who know about it. (There are 17 known cases in the US -- let me know if one is in your town!) This is where kids cannot feel any physical pain.
-- Muscular Dystrophy Child -- Amazing kid who is changing people's views about MD

Clearly Charisse wasn't just sitting around waiting for pitiful people to write in. No, she was actively searching for them. She was canvassing neighborhoods, contacting churches and Chambers of Commerce for them. In her list, though, the word "gay" doesn't appear.

And after seven years and 118 episodes, there still hasn't been a gay family on the show.

I emailed ABC again a couple months ago. Now all they'll say is they get too much email to respond to everyone. As of two weeks ago, Disney/ABC is airing another "family" program. Opportunity Knocks awards families a quarter of a million bucks if they correctly answer trivia questions about each other.

In the first episode, a heterosexual family played. In the second episode, a heterosexual family played.

It doesn't take Einstein to see the pattern here.

The time has come for Disney to step up to the plate and give a gay family a shot. A gay couple should have a chance for their spectacular new house to be foreclosed. A gay mom should get to win a McMansion and then throw all her kids out. A gay dad should get to allegedly strip his fabulous new house bare and sell everything to buy drugs.

Until ABC and Disney decide we get equal rights, we are tuning out.

Click here to ask ABC and Disney when we'll see a gay family on either of these shows.