Gays Get Married-- Republican Ones Too. Have You Watched GCB Yet?

I just rented an apartment in New York. I haven't been there in such a long time but I'm decamping for an extended stay based around the wedding of two old friends, Ellen, a professor, and Paula, a financial advisor. "My first gay wedding," I mentioned to my friend Steve, a vintner, the other day. "No," he responded. "You were at Alyson's and Stacey's wedding over ten years ago in Central Park... at the Boathouse. There's a picture of us at it on the front of your Facebook page!" Maybe I had discounted it in my mind because gay marriage wasn't "legal" at the time.

When I was growing up the idea of gays marrying each other was aberrant (and to many, abhorrent). Social mores have changed so drastically, so quickly that now it's accepted and what's aberrant is the old cliche of marriages of convenience, in which closeted gay men would marry "beards," spouses who either knew or didn't know that the marriage was a front. Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig had one of those and he'd dutifully wheel out his "wife" and her children (by a former marriage) around election time to prove what a manly man he was. He also wheeled her out when he was caught trying to blow a comely young undercover police officer in a public toilet. Didn't work that time.

This weekend, North Carolina GOP challenger Ken Fortenberry wheeled out something else-- questions about his hypocritical closet case opponent, Patrick McHenry and his phony marriage of convenience a few months ago. McHenry is hardly the only closeted Republican in Congress with a fake marriage. Bob Bauman (R-MD) got kicked out of his home by his equally right-wing crazy wife when he was caught blowing an underage boy. Ed Schrock's (R-VA) wife seemed as surprised as everyone else when the Congressman was exposed describing the characteristics of male genitals he preferred in an ad. Miss McConnell (R-KY) and Trent Franks (R-AZ) have marriages of convenience while Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and David Dreier (R-CA), each of whom lives with a longtime male lover, are commonly described as "lifelong bachelors." Aaron Schock (R-IL)-- on the right-- who spends an inordinate amount of time working out in gyms, trying on belts, and grooming himself, is an eligible DC bachelor who keeps complaining that he "just can't find the right gal." Like McHenry and Craig, Jim McCrery's (R-LA) career forced him into a marriage of convenience, although it didn't fool anyone and he resigned anyway.

And as gay marriages-- real ones-- become more and more accepted in society, Republicans look more and more like out-of-touch freaks, out of touch with the contemporary world. The new issue of Out Magazine has a review of a new hour-long television comedy series on ABC, GCB, which stands for Good Christian Bitches, a title snipped by the network after accusations of bigotry in the press.

But judging by the pilot-- especially its first scene, where a Ponzi schemer escaping to Mexico with his mistress and heaps of laundered cash accidentally drives his sports car off a cliff while getting a blowjob-- the show’s punches are delivered with a glorious dose of camp.

This death-by-road-head opener sets the scene for the embezzler’s disgraced wife, Amanda Vaughn (Leslie Bibb), to leave Southern California and move her family back in with her estranged, acerbic mother (Annie Potts) in a mansion-strewn enclave of Dallas. The move is also symbolic for ABC, which, in its final year of chronicling the prim, wintry housewitches of Wisteria Lane on Desperate Housewives, will pass the torch of scintillating suburban scandal to GCB.

...“The show is not in any way an attack on Christianity,” says Mark Deklin, who plays Blake Reilly, a closeted cowboy in a marriage of convenience. “It’s a light-hearted comedic jab at hypocrisy.”

While the somewhat antiquated nature of Blake’s relationship may initially be off-putting to liberal viewers, it represents a real phenomenon. Deklin maintains, however, that GCB will give the issue a fair, if somewhat jocular, treatment. “With the show, we’re not necessarily condoning that choice, but we’re not condemning it either,” he says. “We’re just looking at it and having fun.”