Never mind nuclear annihilation, Islamo-fascism, or imminent economic collapse.
Midwesterners are most afraid of taking it up the ass. As long as we're talking about a strapping gay man, or a lesbian couple with a strap-on, that is. But the little wife with a strap-on, that’s an entirely different issue. Pass the KY, Dorothy.
If only the Democratic brain trust running the Kerry campaign might have been better than Karl Rove at playing to the homophobia of folks in Jerkwater, USA. Because Lord knows, there’s certainly a lot of jerking going on out there. Sex shops have been on the rise in small town America for some time. One of the largest sex shop chains in the country is based smack dab in the middle of Ohio, the God-fearing swing state, with more than 20 superstore locations through out the Midwest.
Let’s face it, with the kind of winters they have in Iowa, what else is there to do but get drunk and screw? Where else do all those blonde-haired, blue-eyed kids come from? These people are getting’ it on, and getting’ it on good.
Which makes it all the more hypocritical that they came out in such large numbers to vote against other people getting it on, and only because they’re guys and girls who like to play with each other’s twigs, berries, and buttons. And before you say, “they were voting against gay marriage, not against adults doing whatever they want in the privacy of their own bedrooms,” we say, “bullshit.” Sorry if you’ve had your nose buried in The New Republic for too long, but we’ve reached the conclusion that a beer-gutted, forty-something manager of the sporting goods department at Wal-Mart who drives a black Dodge Ram pickup with a little number three window decal and gets wood every time his teenage daughter turns on a Brittany Spears video is incapable of distinguishing between “gay marriage” and “gay lifestyle.” To him, it’s rope suckers and butt pirates all around.
To add insult to injury, take states like Montana and Oregon, where collectively 1,273,105 people voted against gay marriage, but 993,509 voted to legalize medical marijuana (just so you know, a prerequisite to casting an “aye” ballot would be having already smoked significant amounts of drugs…you know, the “dude, swwwwwwwwwwww…what if we could grow weed and like sell it to sick people and stuff” vote). Reefer madness? In God’s Country? If it’s OK for straight Montanans and Oregonians to do a bong and bang, why isn’t it OK for Tom and Dick, or Sally and Jane?
The same sentiments apply to the annoyingly frustrating issue of abortion.
There’s little doubt that if Johnny 30 Seconds knocked up 14 year-old Little Mary Rotten Crotch, her white bread, respectable middle class parents would spirit her away to the nearest abortion clinic faster than you can say “coat hanger.”
Midwesterners simply need to get out of the malls, expose themselves to other lifestyles. Take a trip; visit a real city, for heaven’s sake, where everybody’s mixing and mingling, and the sighting of a gay couple holding hands is not akin to a rare sighting of the endangered Sphrangus bird.
And after they get the homophobia squared away, maybe they can start focusing on the real issues. Time columnist Joe Klein said it best in a recent interview with CNN’s very own lady of the night, Paula Zahn: “A lot of people think that this country going in the wrong direction because abortion is legal and every third commercial on television is for erectile dysfunction.” That’s because the Bush administration panders to the big drug companies, which are more interested in turning huge profits with popular designer drugs than in producing essential vaccines. Flu shot, you say. How about a four-hour hard on instead?
But let’s not be so quick to condemn Mr. Bush. Basic economics are at play here, too. Demand begets supply. The stuff wouldn’t be around unless a lot of horny, flaccid-pricked men wanted it (see part about sex shops in Midwest above).
As for the disturbing fact that most voters in the middle of the country completely ignored the President’s gross negligence as HNIC, there’s a very simple answer: they were all too busy shagging to pay attention.
