By Gary Barlow

Things big shots say
OK—Freeform has something useful for you this week.

First, read this out loud, “I don’t recall going to that party.” Go ahead—say it two or three times.

Now, say, “If I met Mr. Rezko, I don’t remember it. I meet a lot of people.”

Good, good—now just for good measure, say, “No such conversation like that took place.”

There—repeat those things out loud two or three times and you’ll probably start feeling like some big-shot governor or senator. Denying that you had any business with Rezko could even be the path to impressing your superiors. They might start looking at you and wondering if they should be a little nicer.

Of course, for almost all of us, those statements are accurate. Oops, there I go, reminding you of the truth. Sorry—you probably don’t feel like such a big-shot governor or senator anymore, huh? Oh, well—I guess it really does take a special gift to say things when we don’t mean them. And we can’t all be that special, can we?

differently fried fries
Australia’s Daily Telegraph caused a row this past week with a report claiming that gay groups had successfully lobbied the New South Wales Education Department to ban words such as “mum,” “dad,” “girlfriend” and “boyfriend” from public schools, replacing them with the more generic and gender-free “partner.”

The report was totally false. Education officials and GLBT groups immediately dismissed it as “simply wrong,” but that didn’t stop the homophobes from reacting with sheer terror. Disapproving comments poured in, accusing the “gay lobby” of everything from advocating libertarianism to “teaching kids to be pushovers.”

You know, the funny thing is that the Daily Telegraph totally missed the other stuff that the “gay lobby” actually persuaded education officials to do. For example, schools will no longer serve pineapple upside-down cake because, after all, one could just as easily see all the other cakes as upside-down. Now kids will get the much more neutral pineapple differently oriented cake.

And no more French fries, either. Nope—now it’s world fries, stressing the value of fries in all their diversity. Italian ice is out, too, by the way, but you probably knew that.

OK—so what’s next on our gay agenda…

The crucial Baldwin vote
In celebrity politics, it was reported last week that the Baldwin brothers disagree about gay rights.

It’s important, of course, to win the battle for the hearts and minds of the Baldwin brothers because there are likely enough of them to tip the balance of power in this country.

Anyway, Baldwin Brother William, in an interview on Out.com, went public with his gay rights displeasure with Baldwin Brother Stephen, who was described as being “born again.” I throw that in just to note the alarming possibility that Baldwin brothers can be born more than once.

Anyway, Brother William said he asked Brother Stephen, in a conversation about gay rights and equal marriage for gays, “Why don’t they deserve the same rights and privileges that you do?”

According to Brother William, Brother Stephen replied, “Because God said and the Bible says that marriage is an institution that exists solely between a man and a woman blah blah blah.”

Wow—I’ve never heard the “blah blah blah” argument stated quite so bluntly. Anyway, Brother William went on to say that he told Brother Stephen that their father (Old Man Baldwin, I guess) would be “horrified” by such homophobic views.

Anyway, maybe somebody should start doing a weekly Baldwin Poll just to keep on eye on the political trends. Maybe we can put GLAAD on it…

To the right, to the right
Finally, it’s kind of complicated—there are apparently about 5,000 political parties in The Netherlands—but the short version of this item is that a new poll shows that Dutch gays are now more likely to vote for conservative political parties than for liberal ones.

The poll of readers of the country’s two leading gay publications revealed that the somewhat nationalist Proud of the Netherlands party, considered right of center, is the top vote-getter among gays, with substantial support for other conservative parties as well.

So there you go—in the country where gay rights has been entrenched the longest, the gay agenda is finally coming to light: Lower taxes, traditional European values and hard-line stances on crime and immigration from Muslim countries. At last, the truth comes out of the closet…