By Gary Barlow

Those wacky Puritans
Their recent Wacky Week turned into something a bit wackier than the kids at Pineview Elementary School, in Reedsburg, Wis., expected after an anti-gay radio network took a dim view of some of their activities.

Wacky Week includes different themes each day of the week, all proposed, debated and voted on by the student senate. This year, one of those themes was a day when students were encouraged to dress either as seniors or as members of the opposite sex.

Bear in mind that these are elementary school students who, their principal said, “did not mean anything by this day. They were trying to have fun and come up with a fun dress-up day.”

Harrumph, said the Voice of Christian Youth America.

“This is tax-funded,” said Voice of Christian Youth America radio host Vic Eliason. “This is not a dress-up party in somebody’s house. There are parents, taxpayers who do not appreciate the imposition of a particular lifestyle being portrayed as a normal lifestyle for the kids.”

Well, chances are these elementary school kids likely had never pondered the meaning of the word “lifestyle” before. I guess that’s changed now. I also imagine that they’ve learned a valuable lesson about the importance of continuing their education, lest they end up in some dead-end lifestyle such as hosting a radio show on a network that sounds like something out of “The Blues Brothers” movie.

Unwanted reminders?
Some of the fellow travelers of the Puritans at the Voice of Christian Youth America set their disapproving eyes on the Marriot International hotel chain last week, demanding that the chain stop offering hotel guests the option of ordering pay-per-view porn movies.

Now, here’s the deal: Hotel guests have to order the movies and pay for them. They’re available on only one of the TV channels offered and guests can block the channel on their remote or by telling the front desk.

Harrumph, said the witch doctors at the American Family Association and 47 “pro-family leaders,” in a letter to Marriot.

Well, you know, I’ve stayed in Marriots and have yet to be forced to watch a porn movie. In fact, I can’t say that I even spent more than a second or two noticing that they were available if I was inclined to watch one. As to what is so bothersome about their availability—geez, I don’t know. So many right-wing ministers have been involved in sex scandals that maybe they don’t like being reminded of porn actors and strippers they’ve, uh, counseled. Maybe even in a Marriot…

00769
Secret Agent James Bond’s wandering eye might wander a little more if actor Daniel Craig has his way.

Craig, who’s the latest in a famous line of actors to play the dashing British agent, told the United Kingdom’s Daily Star last week that he wants Bond’s script writers to “modernize” Bond by making him bisexual.

“Why not? I think in this day and age fans would have accepted it,” Craig said.

Indeed—of course, then the question becomes who does 007 share his first gay martini with? Ewan McGregor? Diego Luna perhaps? Orlando Bloom, anyone?

Earlier this year, a survey found that Craig is the British actor gay men most want to date, so any hot film fling involving Craig and another guy would make a lot of gay men very happy.

And here you thought Christmas only comes once a year…

Keeping each other warm
And to put your fears at rest, not to mention the rest of you, a gay group in Denmark has announced the world’s first gay cemetery.

That’s right—now you can spend your eternity in the graveyard equivalent of a gay bar, surrounded by other gay men.

Right now, some of you are probably thinking a little bit harder about making sure you get your will changed to stipulate what you’d like to wear to your eternal rest. And, just remember—it’s never too late to squeeze in one more trip to the gym, just to firm up those pecs a tad more. After all, you don’t want to look flabby, especially when you’re lying on your back for, well, forever.

Of course, we expect the cemetery comes with a decent sound system. I imagine Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” might be a popular number in the old graveyard.

And do caskets come with hankys?