In this broadcast, I will be reading two short stories. The first is by the award-winning gay author David Leavitt entitled Gravity. Leavitt’s story explores the minute ways small everyday events take on special significance in the face of death and a mother’s love. The second is by the award-winning author Annie Proulx entitled Brokeback Mountain in which an uncommon love story set in mountain country unfolds between the ranch hands Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist. Because of its length, I’ll be splitting the story into four parts. I’ll be reading the first part on this podcast. Listen!
1. Gravity by David Leavitt
Among the many imaginative works — poetry, prose, plays, memois, polemics — written in an epoch of AIDS, when the very source of all creativity in certain quarters of our culture has been threatened, none is more powerfully succinct and more humansly moving than David Leavitt’s “Gravity,” in which the unspeakable is depicted in domestic and wholly convincing terms. The victory that constitutes the story’s epiphany is a small one, but it is a victory. (excerpt from the introduction for Gravity in The Oxford Book of American Short Stories edited by Joyce Carol Oates)
2. Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx (part 1 of 4).
Annie Proulx, a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, packs a tremendous amount of information and incredible prose in 58 short pages. “Brokeback Mountain” is a heart-wrenching, gritty novella about two tough ranch hands who meet on a job, and, inexplicably, fall in love. These stoic, impecunious, high-school dropouts, who live rough lives, are desperately in need of a job. Both Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist sign up with “Farm and Ranch Employment” and end up herding for the same sheep operation on Brokeback Mountain.
Ennis is engaged to be married when he meets Jack and doesn’t consider himself “queer.” Neither does Jack. The two men embark on an intimacy that they feel is their own business, as long as it isn’t hurting anybody else. It’s just sex between two, lonely, horny, guys and it means nothing. When the summer is over and they part, Ennis feels horrible about leaving Jack. If, what they had together meant nothing, then why can’t Ennis shake the bad feeling separation brings? (excerpt from Cheri Rosenberg’s review of Brokeback Mountain on Amazon.com)
Download Queer Visions Podcast Three (mp3).
This broadcast is 20 minutes in duration.
This past week-end, Ang Lee won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival for his film adaptation of 
And so it goes. Last night in California, after approval by the state Senate last week, the 

13
Sep 05
John Roberts, Bill Moyers and Fascist Fundamentalists
But I fear that many who call themselves Conservative but aren’t themselves Christian Fundamentalists are choosing not to make a distinction given the current theocratic climate of the GOP. Too many Conservatives don’t seem to care, worry about or – at the very least – understand the implications of the Christian Fundamentalist takeover of their party. I wonder if these non-fundamentalist Conservatives have ever thought about fundamentalism in a broader global perspective regardless of its Christian, Jewish or Islamic manifestations.
After reading Bill Moyers’ recent speech 9/11 and the Sport of God regarding the growing threat of fundamentalism in this country especially after 9/11, I thought of the influence it has had in my life. I come from an extended family with members who are people of color and members (including myself) who are gay. Yet some in my extended family remain explicitly and unapologetically racist while others of my immediate family remain decidedly and arrogantly anti-gay. And I believe it is primarily the fundamentalists in this country who have nurtured these xenophobic arrogant world views. I attribute to the leaders of the Christian Fundamentalists the longevity of these hateful and racist attitudes living on in my family.
It is predominantly the legalistic literalist Christian Fundamentalists pointing to passages in the Bible who have sown the seeds of intolerance, irrationalism and apathy towards our fellow man in this country. Using the power of the pulpit and their viral sermons of denigration they once justified the enslavement and segregation of People of Color and now – under the guise of compassion – they slander the character and agenda of Gay and Lesbian people.
Yet though I recognize the powerful propagandizing influence this cult of the Chosen Ones has had over some in my family, I no longer dismiss their culpability as merely a product of ignorance and provincialism. To me they have sold their souls in order to buy a modicum of comfort, justification and consolation against the complexities of the real world and more shamefully in order to turn a blind eye to the realities within their own family.
I choose to associate little with that aspect of my blood for they deeply offend me and those I truly love. The same cannot be said of my young brown-skinned cousins. They must still endure the burdens of growing up in such a family – one in which racism is masked by emotional distance and coldness. Nevertheless, those who offend me most aren’t the racists or anti-gay family members but the fascist and deeply dangerous Christian Fundamentalist leaders spreading their supremacist ideologies…
Does John Roberts hold within him a Christian Fundamentalist view of the world he dare not reveal while being confirmed but that has been privately communicated to all the ‘right’ people?
Or has John Roberts long hidden within him moderate views and progressive ideals, ones he knew would be anathema to his big league ambitions?
I hope Roberts will ‘be his own man’ as he said during his testimony and that he holds within him a great empathy and intelligence for those different from him and yet living under the same laws. I hope that he will be a non-silent voice of reason, fairness and equality by exercising that unique independent power soon to most likely be given to him.
As for me and my family and the irrational fundamenalism infiltrating our lives, I can only do my small part in opposing it. As has often been said, those who fail to oppose tyranny have no one but themselves to blame when it comes for them.
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