It took me two and half years to formulate my response, and no apologies for mincing my words. I wouldn't wanna get, you know. Cancelled!

Not that racism isn't abhorrent. But the interview kicked off with manly John—

—his parents named him "Marion", by the way, did you know that? I tell you no lie. But I guess he wasn't manly enough to cope with the blowback from that one. I would question the scholastic competency of parents of any "race" who sat down, looked in their Readers' Digest Big Book of Baby Names for Boys, gave a pass to Richard, or Thomas, or even Leslie, for frig's sake, then thought, "Marion! You can keep your Charles and your Fred and your Crispin, "Marion" it is! It's so all-American, he'll need a bodyguard to stop them making him captain of the football team!"—

Anyway. The racist views are, of course, repugnant. But he kicks off with a little warm-up, just to get the blood flowing into the part of the brain that processes irrational hate, consisting of some light gay-bashing. Think of it like the maintenance cycle when you're doing circuit training. Just a bit of gentle running-on-the-spot type hate. He refers to "Midnight Cowboy", one of the best movies of the seventies, as being about "two fags" (and it isn't at all about that, it's really about a relationship between two misfits that becomes, by the end, an expression of profound love). But in the Manly World of Marion Wayne, anything less than a right hook to the jaw is suspect when it's dudes. So, a movie about two "fags" is "perverted."

But no big whoop. This perverted fag has been hearing those epithets since he was knee-high to a dude with a girl's name! You just kind of get used to it.

So, though I never leave the house without my chirpy "I'm an ally!" pin, I'm feeling a little left out. So kindly give homophobia its place in the sun.

After all, Blacks can, and do, go to university and prove Marion wrong. But I can't de-perv myself! Lordy, no! Are you kidding me?

I'm just stuck with that one.

PS: I think public facilities belong to the public. How about "Orange County International Airport"? Better than naming it after some dude with a girl's name!

DR