Barney Frank Fracas; First OUT USAF Cadets Graduate; Bristol Palin: Dr. Spock for ‘Generation Yawn’?
Openly-gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) is trying to explain away a joke he made on May 27 during a commencement address at the University of Massachusetts- Dartmouth. Frank—who has announced his intention to retire from the House of Representatives in January, after 32 years as a Member— was commenting about an academic robe given to civil-rights leader Hubie Jones during the ceremony. “You now have a ‘hoodie’ you can wear and no one will shoot at you,” said Frank, making reference to the February shooting in Florida of Trayvon Martin. Frank was himself the subject of a cruel comment in 1995 from then-House Republican leader Dick Armey, who called the Massachusetts liberal “Barney Fag” during an interview. Attempting an explanation for the joke, Frank said after the hoodie fracas, “I wore a hooded gown in three ceremonies earlier this year, and in my remarks at those events, I used the same joke on myself.”
President Obama was on hand to deliver the commencement address as the first openly-gay United States Air Force Academy cadets graduated on May 23, just eight months after the official repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” went into effect. “The whole thing is we don’t want to be identified as anything different,” said Trish Heller, who serves of the Board of Directors on the Blue Alliance, a group of LGBT Air Force Academy alumni. “We want to serve, to be professional and to be symbols of what it means to be Air Force Academy graduates.” According to Heller, a Colorado-based attorney and 1987 Air Force Academy graduate, at least four openly-gay members of the Academy’s Class of 2012 received their diplomas last week. Heller said that there were likely others, as well.
Presently, LGBT cadets at all five of the nation’s military service academies have formed gay-straight alliances and support groups. Spectrum, the U.S. Air Force Academy group, was officially sanctioned this month, and includes approximately 30 members from the Academy’s seniors and underclassmen.
Blue Alliance alumni flew Rainbow flags in November during a home game for the Academy’s Falcons football squad. The group also hosted a dinner attended by Brigadier General Dana Born, the institution’s dean of faculty.
Not long after President Obama’s historic endorsement of gay marriage this month, Bristol Palin, the daughter of 2008 GOP Veep candidate Sarah Palin, took her own turn weighing in on the most pivotal social issue of our time. The 21-year-old author of the 2011 autobiography “Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far” flexed her muscles as a religious historian—while building her street cred as a youth counselor—when she railed against Obama’s reference to his daughters and to the gay parents of some of their friends. “It would’ve been helpful for him to explain to Malia and Sasha that while her friends’ parents are no doubt lovely people, that’s not a reason to change thousands of years of thinking about marriage,” said Palin. She also suggested helpfully that the Obamas may be watching “too many episodes of ‘Glee.’”
“In general, kids do better growing up in a mother/father home. Ideally, fathers help shape their kids’ worldview,” added Palin, whose own experience of life “so far” includes a teen pregnancy that was aided by the moral titan Levi Johnston, who was painted in her memoir as a date rapist who had sex with a waytoo- drunk and blacked-out Palin. Palin will also get to showcase her mothering chops in full view of a global audience when her 10-episode reality TV program, “Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp,” premiers this year, a perfect vehicle for this Mother of the Year-in-waiting.«
