By Gary Barlow

Education and the devil

Some angry folks in Montgomery County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C., filed suit last week to stop the county school district from teaching new sex education courses that tell students that, gasp, some people really are gay.

The lessons are aimed at 8th, 9th and 10th graders and allow teachers and students to discuss such things as tolerance for people who are gay or transgender. The objectors, who are being encouraged and supported by some major national anti-gay organizations, want the district to remove the sections on homosexuality or allow them to provide information from anti-gay groups.

School district officials, who’ve been fighting these people for several years now, say the courses were thoroughly vetted by state school officials and have been argued “endlessly.”

Of course, if these right-wing idiots win, then why not allow others to come into schools to promote alternative viewpoints? There are already Luddites who want to teach that God created the universe 6,000 years ago and that there’s no such thing as evolution. I mean surely we shouldn’t discount the theories of some people that the sun revolves around Earth or that if you sail too far west, you’ll fall off the edge of the ocean and die. After all, at one point or another, God’s true believers espoused both of those positions.

straight for pay

Down in Mexico, another group of God’s true believers wants to help all the poor, misguided gay people—well, at least the ones with a little cash to spare.

The anti-gay group Courage Latino is sponsoring “spiritual retreats” aimed at persuading gays to become straight. According to La Jornada newspaper, Rev. Juan Martinez, the priest who’s organizing the “retreats,” says people aren’t really gay—instead, he says, there are “men and women in a situation where they are attracted to the same sex.”

Um, OK—I thought that’s kind of the point, you know. I’m drawing a blank on gay people I know who aren’t attracted to the same sex.

But anyway, Father Juan is no slouch in one department—he may want to help turn folks straight but it ain’t cheap. He charges 700 pesos, about $63, for the weekend retreat. I guess maybe God does free stuff, but a priest has got to eat, you know.

It’s no surprise, since Father Juan learned from the snake oil pros here on our side of the border. Formation of his Courage Latino was apparently done under the auspices of the U.S. anti-gay group also known as Courage, which has been helping sham counselors make bucks off of and screw up gay people here for years.

Ex-scam artist

At least one “ex-gay” scam artist was put out of business last week in Texas.

Christopher Austin, a counselor who’d been running an “ex-gay” sham counseling service in Irving, Texas, just outside Dallas, was sentenced to seven years probation and registered as a sex offender after prosecutors convicted him on two counts of sexually assaulting clients.

That’s right—Austin was running Renew Ministries out of a church, enticing gay men into believing he could help make them straight, all for a fee, of course. Only Austin, prosecutors said, had a thing for manipulating his clients at their most vulnerable and then having sex with them.

OK, go ahead and get it out of your system—eeeeuuuuwwww.

The judge initially sentenced Austin to prison but then changed it to probation, which is a pity. After all, it would have been only fitting for Austin to spend a few years in intimate quarters with other men who aren’t really gay either.

Buy this car

Finally, are you all up for the hottest, most fun car commercial in history?

Well, then, whip out your keyboards, iPhones, laptops and whatever and go ASAP to www.my-trevis.de/index.php?dp+ecard.

I know, it’s kind of a long address, but believe me, it’s the gayest car ad ever, a German ad for Daihatsu’s Trevis. Once you’re there, click on “lhr Trevis-typ” and just watch. You’ll get your choice of three beefy dancers—a cowboy, a soldier and a jock. Be sure and click on the options on the right side of the boys. No car company has ever gotten a gay ad this right, trust me. You’ll probably want to go to Germany and buy a Trevis (they’re actually kind of cute, too.)

Enjoy…