Moore sodomy AND equality

Michael Moore, the Oscar-winning king of documentary filmmaking, recently declared his interest in making a film about LGBT political struggles, homophobia and the anti-LGBT movement. Well, hallelujah and bring it on!

A Moore film that features some of us and some of our most entrenched opponents would be a delicious treat. Imagine Moore interviewing the likes of Brian Camenker, the Massachusetts-based anti-gay organizer who runs a notoriously over-the-top Web site called Mass Resistance. Camenker is so bad that he was booted off the radiowaves last spring for his outrageously defamatory broadcasts. Camenker skewered on The Daily Show by Ed Helms in 2005. Says the determinedly slanderous Camenker, "It's a little scarey as to where this movement might be headed. Gay activists use a lot of the PR tactics and propaganda tactics that the Nazis used." Says Helms: "That comparison is a bit extreme, don't you think? I mean, what did the Nazis do that was so bad?"

Or how about Moore interviewing Rod Wheeler, the "security expert" who just stuck his foot in his mouth claiming an epidemic of gang activity in U.S. cities wherein pistol-packing lesbians brandish pink Glock 9mm handguns.

Moore would run riot with his candid camera-style filmmaking, letting the purveyors of homo-hate regurgitate their trash at his feet while Moore takes it all in and just keeps asking his innocent-seeming questions. I'd love to see that!

Moore, of course, has already taken a jaunt around the homophobia circuit. In the 1999, Moore's Bravo show The Awful Truth aired a segment called "Sodomobile." In a pink RV, Moore tooled through some of the then-20 states that still criminalized private adult consensual sexual activity. The screamingly funny segment featured about 20 youngish gay men and a few lesbians who romped, hooted, danced and (presumably) screwed their way across those unfree states. The Rev. Fred Phelps and family make a guest appearance when the Sodomobile stops in Topeka, Kansas, home of the Westboro Baptist Church. Phelps and clan proffer their typically retro-primitive views of gay folk, gay sex, and remind all of the gyrating homos that they are bound for hell, sure as he is standing in front of them. The segment is still available for your viewing pleasure on You Tube. Check it out!

Michael proved his chops as a filmmaker who can not only tackle LGBT issues, but can also bring the homohaters to their knees. Phelps and clan are seen on the segment loading their nasty signs into their pick-up truck and beating a fast retreat from the Moore-led camera crew and the band of sodomites. Delicious.

Should Michael Moore bring his special brand of filmmaking to queer issues and our adversaries, we will have a gay old time at the movies. But that's not even half of why a Moore film about our lives would be important.

Michael Moore, in case you haven't noticed, is a straight guy whose films, almost regardless of their subject matter, put butts in movie theatre seats. Witness the box office success of Fahrenheit 911. Witness the media attention to his latest film, Sicko.

A Moore film about the anti-gay industry would inform, educate and possibly agitate millions of non-LGBT people, bringing them into close and personal contact with the hostile homo-haters we face down each and every day.

When the Sodomobile episode aired on The Awful Truth, Moore screened it in front of a studio audience in Chicago for the taping. At the conclusion of the sodomy segment, the studio audience gave Moore a standing ovation. Moore said later, "I want [the public] to see essentially an audience that is primarily heterosexual, a show that is staffed primarily by heterosexuals who want to say to other heterosexuals, 'Knock this stuff off. Stop it.' "

As a lifelong lesbian activist, I know that it doesn't always feel quite right to me when heterosexual surrogates speak on my behalf. But I can get over that quickly when the straight guy or gal says exactly what I would want to say and is heard by many more people than will ever hear me.

Action! Roll 'em!

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