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June 2009
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Queer(ty) Times

I’m getting more and more perturbed with the gay rights movement—at least the visible parts of it—in America.

One of the gay “news” blogs I follow, Queerty, has followed the story about South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford with some kind of strange fixation.

While I will admit that the governor is a hypocritical anti-gay idiot, one of the stories on this website was headlined, “Missing Governor Discovered Cruising in the Forest”. Mind you this was while the Appalachian Trail point was still the current story, before the truth about Argentina appeared.

That said, the headline conveyed two pieces of false information: first the word “discovered”—he hadn’t been discovered at all, rather the media was told that the man was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, nobody in the media had actually talked to the governor.

The second lie in the headline is the word “cruising”. For those of you unfamiliar with the gay lifestyle, a fair percentage of men go “cruising” for sex. This can happen in parks, clubs, or other public venues where the heterosexual population is often not aware that it is occurring. Sometimes oblivious members of the gay community, can miss out on the fact that they’re in a cruisy spot. Whether or not this kind of behavior is to be tolerated or not is not the point here, the point is that there was no evidence supporting the headline—and that ultimately the headline is libelous, perhaps even maliciously.

Here’s the truth: Governor Sanford was neither discovered on the Appalachian Trail, nor was he cruising for sex along its trail. Neither of the points made in the headline were even remotely supported in the gay website’s underlying Politico news article. The editors and writers for Queerty just made shit up and are, consequently, no better than Fox News.

I really need to stop reading Queerty: aside from their beefcake posts which raise blood pressure locally, 70-80% of their posts raise my blood pressure in unpleasant ways.

Is there a quality gay news source in America—some place that tries to put together balanced stories with accurate information? It seems to be missing.

3 comments to Queer(ty) Times

  • “Is there a quality gay news source in America—some place that tries to put together balanced stories with accurate information?”

    Let’s start one.

  • How about the advocate.com. Maybe their gay-über-alles ethos is jading after a while, yet they tend to be more level-headed than many “gay” publications out there. I prefer calling them pseudo-gay-penis-centred wanna-be eRags.

    New to this blog, nice read.

  • @headbang8: Funding sources?

    @Palestinian: I used to read the advocate–even subscribe–but after awhile it became more like People than like Time, and I want the Economist. I doubt I will ever get what I really want.