Oh, You Sexy Fascist

Regular reader(s) of this humble “weblog” undoubtedly know that we’ve been getting lots of mileage recently out of The New Statesman, the British answer to The Nation, albeit not printed on bathroom tissue. And, to be sure, we have poked fun at this lefty rag quite a lot in the past few weeks.

But there’s a reason for this. As far as we can tell, The New Statesman is simply the gift that keeps on giving. In that regard, it bears a lot in common with herpes. A lot.

So, dear reader, you’ll forgive us if we—once again—take issue with an issue of the ole’ NS. As you shall see anon, we’ve got every reason to kick up a minor fuss about a minor idiocy contained within its pages.

On the back page of the May 7 number of The New Statesman, one will find a column titled “Julian’s Week,” which is written by a bloke called Julian Clary. This column—alas—comes complete with a picture of Mr. Clary, whose sequins and makeup officially render him gayer than a maypole.

We’re not kidding, dear reader: This Clary fellow makes Sigfried and Roy seem like Mean Joe Green. He is to homosexuals what Hitler is to evil Nazis. Not, we dare say, that there is anything wrong with that.

As befits Mr. Clary’s intentionally outlandish look, his column offers a gay take on current affairs. It is not, we should stress, a particularly informed or charming take, but it’s a take nonetheless.

Here, dear reader, is the passage from Mr. Clary’s column that attracted our particular attention:

I have never knowingly been sexually aroused by a Tory. Even in my youth, when I wasn’t exactly picky, I would assess each shadowy figure on Hampstead Heath for tell-tale signs of his political proclivities before I delved further. Bowler hats and brollies were a turn-off. If you wore a flat cap or a Che Guevara T-shirt, on the other hand, I might well be your plaything for 20 minutes, at least.

This bit surely speaks to Mr. Clary’s great ignorance of Che Guevara—an ignorance unfortunately shared by manifold leftists. How many morons clad in Che shirts know virtually nothing about him? Apparently, this particular dimwit doesn’t realize that Che Guevara, among his other delightful deeds, helped Fidel Castro set up a Cuban police state.

And this is a police state, we must add, that punishes homosexuals—qua homosexuals—with imprisonment. In comparison with that, isn’t a bowler hat dead sexy? Disgraceful oppression of homosexuals vs. brollies—isn’t the choice obvious?

As supporters of gay rights, we find Mr. Clary’s shocking vapidity disgraceful. What moral Jew would applaud Yassir Arafat? What moral black would applaud “Bull” Connor? What moral homosexual would applaud Che Guevara?

Let’s hope Mr. Clary is merely an idiot, not a cretin.