Know Your LGBT History - Starsky and Hutch

An announcement - In celebration of the fifth anniversary of Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, I will be having a Know Your LGBT History marathon of six posts on a Saturday in September. These posts will feature the good, bad, and ugly portrayals of the gay community in movies and television. Some will piss you off, others will make you cheer. But they will all be new entries. More info later. For now, tell me what you think of the idea.

Starsky and Hutch was a popular cop drama in the 1970s starring David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser as two unorthodox policemen fighting crime in California. Antonio Fargas also starred and stole the show a lot of times with his character of HuggyBear.

I think it's safe to say that Starsky and Hutch, while popular during the four seasons it was on (1975-1979) wasn't necessarily groundbreaking.

However, the action was awesome, the chemistry between Soul and Glaser was tight, and the plots were original.

Such as the plot to the episode Death in a Different Place. In this episode, a policeman an old friend of Starsky's is found murdered in a sleazy motel. As they investigate the crime, Starsky and Hutch find out that the man was involved in gay relationships. And the question has to be did that have anything to do with his murder?

Careful about what you think so far. The episodes takes many twists and terms, showing both infuriating ignorance about the gay community and some of the characters are sleazy as hell. However the episode does show a bit of sensitivity - particularly with the murdered man's wife who knew of his encounters but loved him anyway.

So was Starky's friend murdered because he was gay? Find out for yourself via this mini version of the episode. And just in case you are wondering, yes that is legendary drag queen Charles Pierce featured in this episode:

From Crackle: Death In a Different Place

Past Know Your LGBT Posts:

Homophobia in the black community claiming victims and other Friday midday news briefs

CDC Finds New HIV Infection Rate in Young Gay Blacks Alarming-Again - Homophobia in the black community is claiming victims.

PROFILE: The Outlandish Beliefs Of Rick Perry’s Prayer Rally Endorsers - All of that insanity in one place. Ugh.

Last Known “Pink Triangle” Holocaust Survivor Dies - I wish I had known this great man.

Scott Lively: Marriage Equality is “Sign Of The End Times” - No. A sign of end times would be you in a relationship with Porno Pete.

NOM's Values Bus Tour will spread 'Santorum' and general homophobia

It has been announced that the National Organization for Marriage is teaming up with several organizations and noted individuals in a bus tour across Iowa next week.

Supposedly, the Values Bus Tour will cover 1,305 miles in four days with events in 22 cities. The tour will pass through 47 of Iowa's 99 counties.

However, based on the participants, I am curious to know just what values is NOM pushing.

A member of the tour will be Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council. FRC has been named as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center because its tendency to spread junk science and propaganda about the gay community, such as the inaccurate notions that homosexuality is linked to pedophilia or how gays have a short lifespan.

Perkins, in particular, when he is not distorting legitimate studies or comparing gays to terrorists, busies himself pretending to not understand why SPLC called out his group.

Also participating:

Former Minnesota governor and current presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty. Pawlenty, believe it or not, used to be an ally of the gay community. That, of course, was before he found it more advantageous to rail about "cross-dressing school teachers" and veto bills which would allow surviving same sex partners from recovering damages in the case of wrongful deaths and execute their deceased partners' funeral wishes.

U.S. Rep. Steve King, who once said that allowing gay marriage would turn Iowa into the "Gay Marriage Mecca," a comment which he did not mean  in a positive manner. King also said that gays wouldn't face problems of discrimination if they would just not "project" their homosexuality. When King is not talking smack about gays, he has some interesting comments about African-Americans. Last year, he accused President Obama of unfairly "favoring" African-Americans.  Later that same year, he labeled government settlements given to black and Native American farmers who suffered decades of discrimination as "slavery reparations."

One wonders how King's participation will play to African-Americans whom NOM always seeks out in its endeavours against marriage equality.

Former Pennsylvania  and another current presidential candidate Senator Rick Santorum (check out the link to his last name), will also be on the bus tour. Santorum has based his career on being on a warpath against the gay community - including same-sex households. However, for some reason, the idea of marriage equality seems to really drive him nuts, as the following quotes prove:

“This is an issue just like 9-11, we didn't decide we wanted to fight the war on terrorism because we wanted to. It was brought to us. And if not now, when? When the supreme courts in all the other states have succumbed to the Massachusetts version of the law?"

"[The] right to privacy…doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution."

“[I have] a problem with homosexual acts, as I would with what I would consider to be acts outside of traditional heterosexual relationships . . . if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery.”

And the piece de resistance in NOM's bus tour - U.S. Rep and current presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. What can be said about Michele Bachmann that hasn't been already uttered? One could talk about her husband's fraudulent clinic's attempts to "cure" homosexuality. Or how, in 2005, she viewed a gay pride parade while hiding behind the bushes (maybe she thought gays would give her cooties or that the music blaring would cause her feet to do a bad "white girl dance" on their own accord). Then there was that 2004 comment connecting gays to Satan. Or these various other homophobic comments:

"You have a teacher talking about his gayness. (The elementary school student) goes home then and says “Mom! What’s gayness? We had a teacher talking about this today.” The mother says “Well, that’s when a man likes other men, and they don’t like girls.” The boy’s eight. He’s thinking, “Hmm. I don’t like girls. I like boys. Maybe I’m gay.” And you think, “Oh, that’s, that’s way out there. The kid isn’t gonna think that.” Are you kidding? That happens all the time. You don’t think that this is intentional, the message that’s being given to these kids? That’s child abuse.”

“This is a very serious matter, because it is our children who are the prize for this community, they are specifically targeting our children.”

“Don’t misunderstand. I am not here bashing people who are homosexuals, who are lesbians, who are bisexual, who are transgender. We need to have profound compassion for people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life and sexual identity disorders.”  

All in all, NOM's "Values Bus"  tour ought to be interesting in a nauseatingly sort of way. And I know that there are many in the lgbtq community hoping for some type of  "Road to Damascus" conversion by some of the attendants or at the very least, a complete bus break down in the middle of lonely road in the blazing heat  or even better - in the dead of night (i.e. a recreation of the horror movie Jeepers Creepers 2).

It's aint gonna happen, folks. But if former NOM member Louis Marinelli's accusations are accurate, there should be a lot of expensive steak dinners and perhaps some gambling on this tour.

I wonder what Gallagher, King, Santorum, and Bachmann look like trying to "make it the hard way."