Queer Tee for the Straight Jew

Mark Steyn writes the following article for the National Review. It is a humorous read with a twisted plot.

I'm not gay, I just falsely claim to be, and then complain about being taken at my word.

The etiquette of political correctness grows ever more complex. See if you can follow this:

1) It is now all but mandatory for all kinds of non-gay bigwigs — pandering pols and whatnot — to march in the Gay Pride parade. So, when it emerged that Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (because we all know what a great shake homosexuals get under Islam) would be marching in the Toronto Pride parade, the head honcho of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Bernie Farber, decided he had to be there also.

2) Entering into the spirit of the event, the non-gay Mr. Farber marched in the parade wearing a T-shirt emblazoned, "Nobody knows I'm gay."

3) Also entering into the spirit of things, an allegedly waggish feminist columnist at theToronto Star wrote tongue in cheek of her surprise at seeing Mr. Farber coming out: "I didn't know he was gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that."

4) After consulting with fellow executives at the Canadian Jewish Congress, Mr. Farber sends a formal letter of complaint objecting to the Toronto Star falsely identifying him as gay while being at pains to add that "I take no offence at being misidentified as gay."

5) Despite the fact that Mr. Farber was the first to misidentify himself as gay, the newspaper's ombudswoman devotes an entire column to a characteristically pompous media-ethics snoozefest denouncing the offending columnist for being "tasteless" and getting the paper's apparently brain-dead publisher (my old boss at the Chicago Sun-Times) to do a lot of plonking pro-forma huffing about how the item "fell short of theStar's standards of accuracy, fairness and civility," and reassuring readers that in future systems will be put in place to ensure that the paper is even more unreadable . . . whoops, sorry, I mean, systems will be put in place to ensure that non-gays claiming to be gay are not taken at their word without having their gay status confirmed by gay-accredited orientation-checkers. Whatever.

Meanwhile, a pro-gay pro-Palestinian website thinks that what happened is that Mr. Farber and a bunch of other straight Zionists marched in the parade deliberately to subvert the event's pro-gay/anti-Zionist solidarity. (I think I've got that right.) But the whole sinister plot was scuttled by the uptight Jews' "gay panic."

If that's true, the International Zionist Conspiracy sure ain't what it used to be. Other commentators may be closer to the truth when they suggest Bernie Farber is too dumb to be Jewish.

My own interest in this derives entirely from the fact that Bernie Farber is Canada's most zealous supporter of the thought-police at the "human rights" commission. It would be nice to think the CJC and the Toronto Star could file "human rights" complaints against each other over this until the entire system collapses.