I Am Not Afraid of Gay Cowboy Movies

World O’Crap reads the wingnuts so the rest of us don’t have to. Today, http://blogs.salon.com/0002874/2005/12/14.html#a2040 , we learn how the Concerned Women of America are concerned about the movie Brokeback Mountain and how some other wingnut is concerned about Harry Potter. The film about gay cowboys and the Harry Potter series of books and movies for kids are both considered attacks on morality.

If you don’t like gay cowboy movies, don’t go see them. If you think Harry Potter is evil, don’t read the books and don’t go to the movies. It seems that for some folks it is not enough for them to be free to express their own preferences. They don’t want anyone to see a gay cowboy movie or read Harry Potter. That someone, somewhere in the world might be watching a gay cowboy movie or reading Harry Potter is intolerable to them. Somehow, they consider that they are negatively impacted by other people’s movie watching and reading choices.

For the life of me, I cannot come up with any way that the gay cowboy genre affects me in the slightest or affects anyone who doesn’t see one of the movies. If gay cowboy pictures are popular, more will follow. We may even see gay kung fu pictures, gay cop and robber movies, gay war movies, or gay political thrillers. I suppose there could be some weirdness if I go to a movie and don’t know the characters are gay until they start getting it on. I am still recovering from the Crying Game.

It might even be interesting to watch some old westerns and imagine that the characters are gay. Rooster Cogburn could have been gay, for example, or Shane. Picture all of Clint Eastwood’s characters as closeted gay men. Would the sexual orientation of the characters affect the stories?

I know the wingnuts are entitled to their opinions, but I am troubled by anyone who claims to have a stake in other people’s peaceful choice of entertainment. This is the kind of attitude that informs the nanny state, and “cultural conservatives” seem incapable of minding their own business. Their claim to a stake in the “culture” legitimizes all manner of meddling and regulation.