No Bush At The Tonys
Sadly, that isn’t a comment on the private grooming habits of the dancers who will be on leggy display this evening on CBS. Rather, it’s a reflection of a dilemma that George W. Bush and the rest of his macho brethren face about the upcoming Republican convention.
When delegates meet in the big city, they naturally want to do more than politic, they want to get out, see a show, see the sights. So their party arranges little perks for them, like theatre tickets.
Here’s the dilemma: They’re trying to shy away from anything that smacks of same-sex marriage or gays, but the culture isn’t going along in America. Much less New York. As Frank Rich points out,
“Massachusetts’s wedding day proved to be the show dog that didn’t bark. Americans merely shrugged, confirming polls both before and after that fateful day: voters rate same-sex marriage dead last in importance among issues in an election year dominated by a runaway real war. The only rabble-rouser “Nightline” could recruit to vilify same-sex marriage was Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. Never mind that he bears the same name as one of Hollywood’s most famous closeted stars. Hardly had he started speaking than he invoked America’s most famous gay playwright by calling John Kerry, whose opposition to same-sex marriage he found insufficient, “a cat on a hot tin roof.”
So that’s where they are: They don’t want to be percieved as accepting of same-sex marriage or gays. But they’re holding their national convention in New York (chosen when it was thought all Bush would have to do is stand at Ground Zero, not cross his eyes, and he’d walk to reelection). And they want to entertain their delegates.
So…
You guessed it: They’ve been forced to try to find Broadway shows without gays.
Good luck!
