After Therapy: Surgeon General Nominee Thinks Butt Sex Icky

Thought Rummy was good for War & Peace? Thought Ashcroft covering up Lady Justice's tits was simple decorum? Rove, Libby & Cheney lie, cheat and kill to settle scores around the world - no problem?

Are you one who thinks if it's Amurrican, it's better by nature than if it's "Oriental"? Anyone from another country (you don't have to count any generation in your family, save your own) is a de facto security threat itchin' to blow up a federal building (never mind that whole Tim McVeigh thing)? Do you think your wife will leave you for a tool belt-wearing, Birkenstocked, flat-bottomed lesbian if Gay Marriage is legalized tomorrow? Or that your 9 year-old will be a whore if you vaccinate her against Cervical Cancer between Sunday School and Monday Morning Math class?

"Then, have we got a guy for you!" , reports the White House. James Holsinger, a real-live doctor, (not like the real-live doctor who speculated that masturbation is an alternative to knocking up your 14 year-old girlfriend...sheesh!) has been put forth by "The Worst Administration in History" for Surgeon General. Nota Bene: When Jimmy Carter, who pretty much had a lock on the bottom spot among American Presidents, can call you names and not even get a giggle, you know he's onto something.

A quick primer for the heterosexual reader: The NY Times first reported a gay-related disease we now know as AIDS in 1981. Ronald Reagan wouldn't say the word because Peggy Noonan wouldn't put it in a speech and Nancy Reagan knew her son was a ballerina, until 1987. This is why you will find gay people pissing on the unlikely-to-be-eternal flame on Reagan's grave in the dark of night and the broad of day. We don't hate people on principle - not famous ones, anyway. There's always a reason. Now you know.

By 1973, the American Psychological Association(APA) had removed homosexuality and its related sexual gymnastics from its list of "disordered" behaviors. Jesus ran around with 12 men, lived with his mother until he was 30, and the last thing He asked for before He died was a drink....and nary a word on the topic. (We aren't inferring...we're just reporting.) Judaism stopped the Levitical practice of stoning queers around the same time they realized that shrimp cocktail is a fast and easy hors d'oeuvres, bacon goes with everything, and that it's a bad idea to suggest stoning a man who laid in a bed where a woman had a little monthly leakage problem. In sum, Republicans haven't only been the last ones through the door to the Big Gay Post-Medieval Seminar, many of them still don't realize there is one.

Witness James Holsinger, alleged M.D, and newly-nominated Surgeon General of these here United States. In a "white paper" published in 1991, titled "Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality", Holsinger wrote for the "Committee to Study Homosexuality in the United Methodist Church" that the paper was solely scientific and not even the teensiest bit related to his ~~dementia~~ theological views. Well, who could think otherwise? Today, Holsinger is president of the United Methodist Judicial Council - the same that voted to de-frock multiple gay or lesbian ministers, usually against their congregants' wishes. If you find a queer who can stand to be in a room of Christians and who will actually fight for the "privilege", we are compelled to call you ungrateful when you've expelled them.

Holsinger personally voted to deny simple church membership to a gay man - not a pastor's job, not a pianist's, not the Sunday School coffee-brewer, he just wanted to be a member (What? The Big Gay Club was closed?). Holsinger had to be over-ruled by his own Methodist Bishops on that one. So even for right-wing loonies, this guy sometimes needs a short leash. Now, Your Only President thinks this is the kind of thinking we need at the top in this era of RU-482, Cervical Cancer Vaccines, and the ham-stringing of AIDS dollars to Africa by abstinence-only education restrictions. He and his wife (you were wondering? puh-lease), lead the cheerily-titled Hope Springs Community Church's gay re-programming effort. This is to psychology what Austrian concentration camps were to medical research. Sure, they're dead on the other end, but nobody can say that at least some of them didn't walk in upright of their own accord. This is how Mr. and Mrs. Holsinger essentially support a methodology rejected by real physicians 25 years ago.

No serious person could read Holsinger's conclusion (we won't call him "Dr." until he calls us "Sister Ganja Of The Eternal Waft") and think he was taking a stab at theology in the middle of his theology assignment. The very insinuation leaves one breathless. Science, people. This is science! Get your mind out of the gutter, already. And clear the room of any children. This is about to get good.

Among Holsinger's scientific, non-theological snippets on the "pathophysiology" of gayness are some 20th century - and not a few 14th century - gems. We admit to only an Education degree, a Law degree and the 2/3 of the MBA program that didn't induce a permanent vegetative state, so we started by confirming our suspicions of the word "Pathophysiology":

"the study of the biological and physical manifestations of disease as they correlate with the underlying abnormalities and physiological disturbances."

Figures. Holsinger jumped back a few millenia for his premise. He did for psychological reasoning what Phil Spector did for hair products. Now for the excerpts that have raised a few eyebrows and given us a new perspective on dating rough-looking men:

- "Gay sex is biologically unnatural and scientifically unhealthy." Interesting premise. I took one deep breath, as a gay man with AIDS before deciding that I could answer this one without calling in a friend with a cleaner resume. If, as is inferred, "scientifically unhealthy" means "will introduce you to AIDS", the only possible conclusion is that the healthiest possible sex on the planet is Lesbian Sex, which has the lowest incidence of STDs, AIDS specifically, of any demographic on the planet - Methodist ~~theologians~~ scientists included.

- "Like male and female pipe fittings, certain male and female body parts are designed for each other..." For example, because you CAN walk around with your thumb up your ass, it must be OK. If, however, you walk around with someone ELSE's thumb up your ass, whether or not it fits, we're going to call that a plumbing issue. P.S. Ladies' thumbs are smaller, go in easier and are 50% less satisfying up the ass. But we don't have any science to back that up. It also begs the question of whether heterosexual, married people have any business thumbing each other's asses, let alone committing the highly enjoyable practice of anal intercourse. Pipe fittings! Science! Not theology. Stay focused.

- "When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and diseases may occur..." Well, yes, and if you drop a good-sized Bible on a Yorkie, you can break its neck. That doesn't make the Bible bad or the Yorkie a defective dog. I broke my foot playing volleyball in 10th grade. There was no moratorium on volleyball throughout the state based on the injury that may have - and did occur. If we closed public facilities every time diseases occurred in the daily course of events, we'd all sit home and be grateful for no flu, but craving good take-out.

We're speaking scientifically, of course. We're sure not even Holsinger means to infer that there is a God/Retribution factor for breaching the Heavenly Pipe Fitting Factor across the genders. That would make him....what? Stupid? Just wipe that right out of your mind. You'd have to be crazy to think this guy is crazy. Or stupid. Right? Right?

Holsinger went on, in his '91 paper, to spend a small fortune exploring the risks of running with scissors - in your rectum. Really. He examined whether if one man put scissors in another man's asshole - out of love or spite - injury would result. He calls this "pathophysiology". We say it's a very bad way to get off, but if scissors are your deal, who the hell is this Kentucky hick to tell you No Clippers In Your Cooters?

For the record...we have never tried this... but putting scissors up someone's ass is on page 73 of The Handbook. It is clearly intended only as an extreme act of revenge and never as foreplay. A footnote mentions that if you want the scissors back, tying twine to one end is a good preparatory step. And use bleach to clean them thoroughly. It's so rare that you anally assault a freshly-douched person in the rectum with your good scissors.

And call your Congress person. This is the kind of lunacy that, gone unchecked, suddenly has Wolf Blitzer forced to talk about Anal Sex when you know he'd rather be talking about IED's. Kill this nomination in committee with a phone call and you can spare us all having to re-live the whole Gay People Do Not Put Gerbils Up Our Asses thing from 20 years ago.

Your congressperson, if on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is listed below. Make no assumptions. Call the good ones, too.

Democrats/Independents

Kennedy, Edward (MA) , Chairman
(202) 224-4543 kennedy.senate.gov/senator/contact.cfm

Dodd, Christopher (CT)
(202) 224-2823 dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/3130

Harkin, Tom (IA)
(202) 224-3254 harkin.senate.gov/contact/contact.cfm

Mikulski, Barbara (MD)
(202) 224-4654 mikulski.senate.gov/mailform.html

Bingaman, Jeff (NM)
(202) 224-5521 senator_bingaman@bingaman.senate.gov

Murray, Patty (WA)
(202) 224-2621 murray.senate.gov/email/index.cfm

Reed, Jack (RI)
(202) 224-4642 reed.senate.gov/contact/contact-share.cfm

Clinton, Hillary (NY)
(202) 224-4451 clinton.senate.gov/contact

Obama, Barack (IL)
(202) 224-2854 obama.senate.gov/contact/

Sanders, Bernard (Independent - VT)
(202) 224-5141 sanders.senate.gov/comments/