THE MAN FROM GLAAD THROUGH THE YEARS, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)—the jackboot division of the gay community—has displayed a gift for publicity-seeking, whether breathlessly chronicling the media appearances of Ellen DeGeneres, counting the number of gay characters on Dawson’s Creek (“Jack continues to be out and proud at Capeside High”), or attacking the likes of Mel Gibson and Dr. Laura for homophobia. At the same time, GLAAD has operated as a behind-the-scenes pressure group with a surprising amount of success influencing the content of TV shows and movies. The secret, it turns out, is to shake down people who are sympathetic to you. Witness GLAAD’s ambush of director Kevin Smith. Anyone who has watched Smith’s movies (from Mallrats to Chasing Amy) knows that the only way Smith could be more gay-friendly is if he dropped his wife for Harvey Fierstein. His characters are often a knot of what he calls “ambisexual” desire—earning him admiring notice from the Advocate magazine: “For a straight dude, Kevin Smith can get awfully queer.” But that’s not good enough for GLAAD. In a letter made public by Smith last week, Scott Seomin, GLAAD’s unfortunately named entertainment media director, bullied Smith with a mau-mauing style that makes one admire Jesse Jackson’s light touch. After screening Smith’s latest satire, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Seomin promised a “public and aggressive…condemnation” for such atrocities as Smith’s allowing his protagonists, both of whom sport room-temperature IQs, to “substitute the word ‘gay’ for something that is wrong or stupid.” Seomin acknowledged that it might be too late to change the film, but requested a personal meeting to discuss “how you will be interviewed” when Smith meets the press to discuss the movie, and “how GLAAD moves forward with its concerns.” How GLAAD moves forward, of course, is with brass knuckles raised and its begging bowl extended. We were prepared to feel sorry for Smith, until we read his cringing response. Here is Smith’s description, published on his website, of his conversation with the gay thought police: [Seomin] said he’d be asking Miramax to make a substantial donation to the Matthew Shepard Foundation (Matthew Shepard is the Wyoming student who was beaten to death for being gay in one of the worst hate crimes in recent memory; the Foundation’s aim is to educate the public on the dangers of homophobia). I said I’d be happy to make a donation as well, as it’s a great cause, and one I believe in strongly. He asked how much I’d like to donate. I queried how much he intended to seek from Miramax. He said two hundred grand. I admitted I don’t have pockets as deep as Miramax. He suggested I donate ten grand, and I said “Done.” Smith goes on to embarrass himself further by asserting that he could never make a homophobic film: “Here’s why: I grew up fat. Even though I’m a white male, being fat my whole life still puts me in a minority category as well.” Smith once joked, “I’m sure there’s a GLAAD award somewhere in my future.” Typically, people win GLAAD laurels for the most naked panders to the gay community. May we suggest that after reading Smith’s letter, GLAAD should pencil him in for a lifetime achievement award. TOUR DE SCHUMER COULD NEW YORK’S SENIOR SENATOR be feeling overshadowed by New York’s junior senator? This, we suspect, is the subtext of the novel-length puff piece on Chuck Schumer in the July 27 New York Times, describing how, when he’s not languishing in Hillary’s shadow or laying the groundwork to squash President Bush’s judicial nominees, Schumer puts in a few miles winding through Brooklyn on his bike. It was an article worthy of one of the most attention-crazed members of the Senate (which is saying something). Here are some choice excerpts (with thanks to SCRAPBOOK reader Kitty Slattery, whose stamina exceeds ours, for slogging through all 2,700 words with her highlighter): “He is on one of his almost-weekly adventures: tooling around the city he loves, turning left when he sees something in one direction, right when something else catches his eye, going straight ahead just to feel the sun and wind on his face.” *** “A woman asked Mr. Schumer to say hello for her to Trent Lott….‘Trent is a lovely guy,’ he answered.” *** “‘Probably none of them know that I’m responsible,’ he said regretfully, referring to the streets chock full of Polish immigrants….‘Most of these people probably don’t know it, but they’re here because of the Schumer visas,’ the senator said, hitting on what politicians call ‘the talking point.’” *** “‘What I like about these rides,’ Mr. Schumer said, ‘is that you never know where you’ll end up.’ This day had not been a Tour de Brooklyn, much less de Greater New York. It had been a delightful dance with serendipity.” After you’ve disposed of the motion-sickness bag, file this one under “the myth of the adversarial press.” Memo to Chuck Schumer: Your communications director deserves a raise. WELFARE, MY LOVELY A NEW AND EXTENSIVE STUDY by former Congressional Budget Office director June O’Neill and M. Anne Hill provides yet more proof that welfare reform works. From the time legislation was passed in 1996 to September 2000 (the most recent available caseload statistics), the number of families on the dole has declined by 50 percent. Employment gains have been greatest among disadvantaged single mothers. The study, just published by the Manhattan Institute, finds that the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program is “the most important single factor accounting for the decline in welfare and the rise in work participation among single mothers,” responsible for “more than half the decline in welfare participation and more than 60 percent of the rise in employment among single mothers.” These same mothers entered the workforce nearly as quickly as they left the welfare rolls. The booming economy, on the other hand, accounted for less than 20 percent of either change. O’Neill and Hill rightly call this “dramatic progress.” Just don’t tell that to the media, which is instead eagerly reporting the findings of the Child Trends research center that children of welfare-to-work parents are drinking and smoking more and experiencing declining grades. Whereas, these same kids, we are supposed to believe, were paragons of virtue when their mothers were unemployed and living at home on AFDC. THE SCRAPBOOK is dubious but open-minded—and also more than a little amused to find the Left finally warming up to the concept of the stay-at-home mother. KEEPING IN MIND THE OLYMPIC SPIRIT (CONT.) WANG GUOQI, A CHINESE DOCTOR, testified before Congress on June 27 that the scavenging of organs from executed prisoners is routine in China. A foreign ministry flack, Zhang Qiyue, called this a “vicious slander.” Now a woman named Fu Mulan has sued the Chinese government for stealing the kidneys of her executed brother. Intriguingly, Fu Mulan’s story, “Where Did My Brother’s Body Go?” has just been reprinted on the website of the People’s Daily, which is the house organ, as it were, of the ruling Communist party. This is either progress of a small sort, or the prelude to a purge of unreliable editors at the People’s Daily online.
