EDGE on the Net

I wish the bad cop/good football player Dallas drama had a happier ending. If you didn’t read about it, or see the 13-minute YouTube clip, (black) Houston Texans’ Running Back Ryan Moats’ SUV was stopped by (white) police officer Robert Powell, while Moats was rushing to the hospital to see his terminal mother-in-law.

After Moats ran a red light and pulled up to the building, the officer stopped him, pointed a gun at Moats’ wife (who ran inside anyway), and proceeded to Dirty-Harry-meets-the-Terminator Moats, telling him to "Shut your mouth," "I can screw you over," and "Your attitude will dictate everything that happens." Moats’ mother-in-law died in the interim. The football player never told the police officer that he was famous, and 25-five-year-old Powell resigned a few days later, after a rash of negative publicity.

In my version, Powell realizes who Moats is, Moats remembers a time when Powell stopped a prowler from breaking into his home, Powell confesses his idolatry, Moats pulls out two brewskies, they both exchange iPods and gardening tips and say race relations are a "bummer, dude," then rush in, arm-in-arm, to see Mom-in-Law, who ascends to the heavens knowing that mankind is indeed. I should add that this story broke around the same time I saw the hetero-bonding flick, "I Love You, Man."

White, black, male, female, gay, straight; until recently it seemed as if the hetero men behaving badly were behind all the ugly news. But the smart and fluffy movie, in which Paul Rudd plays a straight guy who discovers the importance of platonic male friendship, not only beckons men to come together in the Obama Age, it also makes the fluffers look downright dimwitted. Also playing on a YouTube theater near you is an ABC News investigation into homosexual acceptance. In that clip, two actors are hired to kiss and be affectionate in a straight New Jersey bar, while a homophobe (also a plant) expresses his disgust. Most of the patrons side with the gay men; one woman is so furious with the bigot she tells him to vacate the premises.

While the clip is fascinating theater, many viewers did note that, if the stunt were executed in, say, Kansas, the outcome might not have been so rosy. What no one dared to mention was how the gay version would pan out: not heteros in a homo bar, but two overweight, long-haired, 40-something, six-pack-guzzling, butt-crack homosexuals making out in a Manhattan or Los Angeles gay bar. The disgusted, six-packed, cracked-butt queens would rush to the shelter of another bar faster than they could yell "visible back hair!" Were the incident filmed in Vermont or Iowa, the lovebirds would be congratulated and directed to the nearest church.

Tell a gay man your networking isn’t getting you anywhere, and he’ll tell you to date better-connected men. There’s a name for people like that -- David Geffen employees. Healthy, gay friendships are starting to look as behind the times as New York and California. Instead of "I Love You, Man," the Coastal Gays are resembling that other recent flick, "Duplicity," in which Clive Owen and Julia Roberts screw each other, screw each other over, screw other people over, and get bored looking out at their beautiful vacation-house views. The film flopped like a hippie at an East Hampton fundraiser.

My New York friend, Tim, flew off to Australia this winter, in part to escape the Chelsea Boy mentality of his hometown. Shortly thereafter, he emailed me to tell me he slept with a friend of mine, but wouldn’t reveal the name as I’d be jealous and said friend didn’t want me to find out. Since I do know men who live in Australia, and since none of them are ex-boyfriends or current boyfriends or potential boyfriends, I can only assume Chelsea Boy Baggage flies free. My Amsterdam friend, Tom, flew off to Los Angeles for vacation and emailed me to say how many sexy, hot, cute "boys" he’d met at the bars, and how surprised he was that none of them spoke to him. Since Tom’s even sweeter and smarter than he is outlandishly pretty, I can only assume that West Hollywood attitude is still raised higher than the bar.

Bravo should do a straight remake of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and call it "I F*** You, Buddy." In the new series, five hetero dudes (George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Sean Penn, Queen Latifah) pluck a hopeless gay narcissist from the treadmill and force him to have drinks with hot men, steam with hot men, take Creatine with hot men, even snub hot men, and then not be allowed to sleep with any of them. It’ll be "Twilight" for the other-sucking set.

Remember the old Spring Break days when slutty coastal girls flocked to Ft. Lauderdale or Palm Springs to show off their tan lines, drink all night and do men all day? Now that both locales are gay havens, nothing’s changed. Except everywhere else. Miami did just incorporate its first Gay Pride Weekend, and when a friend of mine who grew up in Florida was asked to comment on Pride History, he said "We don’t have history; we have Anita Bryant."

Rainbow flags and beefed-up fags aren’t the stuff of change; they’re products of it. The Ghost of Anita’s Past lives on in New Jersey, where a town council is debating whether Gay Pride flags should even be allowed in "family neighborhoods." Yes, it would be tragic for children to grow up in an environment of tolerance. Amazon.com is removing "erotic" literature from its "rankings" listings, with a disproportionate amount of dropped books falling under the "gay" category; those shameful porn-pushers include Rita Mae Brown, Augusten Burroughs, E.M. Forster, and David Toussaint (yes, my salacious gay wedding planner’s been given the pink-list slip). But don’t cry for all adult lit: "Speechless: Silencing the Christians: How Liberals and Homosexual Activists are Outlawing Christianity (and Judaism) to Force Their Sexual Agenda on America" is still ranked and, apparently, child-approved.

The folks at the National Organization for Marriage have released a commercial depicting a bunch of Average Americans admitting their bible-felt fear of gay rights. I’m all for it; I’m also pushing for another commercial that expands on the sins not covered in the ad. The "average" Americans are actually actors (methinks lying is forbidden in the Good Book), and if anyone involved in N.O.M. worked on the Sabbath, got a divorce, committed adultery, or held a leather handbag without gloves, they’re headed straight to Hell. Religious bigots pick and choose their sins the way "Dancing with the Stars" picks its winners: The rules count, but so does race, gender, the way you dress, propaganda, your social niche, and whether or not you can convince American audiences you’re really in love with the girl you’re arm-and-arm with.

Anyone who favors equal rights picked winners in Vermont and Iowa, and it’s a fantastic moment in history. It’s also a time when I realized the main man wasn’t stepping up to the love plate. Despite the fact that he’s a civil rights success story and an affirmative-action success story, and despite the fact that, due to anti-miscegenation laws, Barack Obama’s own mixed-race parents would not have been allowed to marry in sixteen states until 1967 (they were married in Hawaii in 1961), the President’s response to gay marriage was anything but reflective.

After the court ruling, the Obama administration released a statement saying, "The President respects the decision of the Iowa supreme court, and continues to believe that states should make their own decisions when it comes to the issue of marriage. Although President Obama supports civil unions rather than same-sex marriage, he believes that committed gay and lesbian couples should receive equal rights under the law."

Ah Shucks, O. You shouldn’t have.

Maybe the guys in the Oval office need to love all men and women a bit more, even the ones who are now sitting in the back of the marriage bus. In fairness, Obama’s got his hands full, and one hell of a leftover plate to clean up. It’s also true that Obama’s actions regarding DOMA and "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" will be the real test of his promises to the gay community. Regardless, words hurt -- and help -- and after Stonewall and AIDS and Matthew Shepard and Rick Warren and H8, and after the biggest civil rights advancements since the ones that helped usher in our new Commander in Chief, we all deserve a better ending.