I don't have a television, so I don't really keep up with these things, but apparently A&E is going to present a two-hour movie next week called "Wedding Wars: Gays on Strike." I only found this out because I was on the stair machine at my gym where TV sets overhead play shows without the sound. Some guy appeared on the screen with a sign that said, "Gays on strike!" and of course I had to Google this when I got home.
John Stamos will play a gay wedding planner (that is, he's gay; the weddings aren't) whose brother is marrying the daughter of the governor. The governor makes an anti-gay speech and Stamos' character refuses to continue volunteering his professional wedding-planning services for his brother's big day. His little action provokes a national strike. Just guessing from here: Wacky hijinks ensue. Wrists are flapped and bridesmaids' hair is mangled, but eventually a bouquet gets tossed, I'm sure, and I'd put money on Stamos' on-screen gay partner catching it.
I'm ticked, because this was my idea and somehow those crafty TV executives ripped me off and made a movie before I even got the Sharpies out for my storyboard. Damn their access to quick capital!
But seriously, the night of the November elections, as my partner and I sat in front of the computer watching the results roll in from around the country and crying in our drinks, we did threaten to strike. We shouted at the CNN site as every contested state but Arizona bent to bigotry and voted to outlaw same-sex marriage and civil unions. "Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah? I got two words for you, Ms. Family Research Institute: gym teachers! Gym teachers! What if all the female gym teachers refused to show up for work tomorrow?"
We got out paper and pen and made a list of whole industries and service sectors that would simply collapse if gays decided to go on strike:
- Floral design
- Hairdressing
- Restaurant service
- Ballroom dancing instruction
- High school gym class
- Graphic design
- Broadway
- Ballet
- Politics (especially the Republican Party)
- Advertising
- Fashion
- Churches with rabidly anti-gay ministers (who inevitably turn out to be gay themselves)
- Parade float design
- Interior decorating
- Film
- Art
- Publishing
- And of course, wedding planning and television
Straight people's society just couldn't function without LGBT people playing the roles we do. I hope A&E's movie is good and does good. I'll be at a school board meeting, so let me know who catches the bouquet, OK?
Jennifer Morales is an elected member of the Milwaukee Board of School Directors, the first person of Latino descent to hold that position. She was first elected in 2001 and was unopposed for re-election in 2005. In 2004, she ran for a seat in the Wisconsin state senate, earning 43% of the vote against a 12-year incumbent.
Previously, she served as the editorial assistant at the educational journal Rethinking Schools; as assistant director of two education policy research centers at UW-Milwaukee; and as the development director for 9to5, National Association of Working Women.
She became the first person in her immediate family to graduate from college, earning a B.A. in Modern Languages and Literatures from Beloit College in 1991.
In addition to her work on the school board, she is a freelance editorial consultant and a mother.
