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Spilled Milk: Homo’s Odyssey

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This post is the fourth in a series of Spilled Milk columns by Emmy Award-winning writer and producer William Lucas Walker that chronicle his journey through parenthood. Spilled Milk, which originates in The Huffington Post, appears on these pages every Saturday.


Not too long ago, our little clan took a road trip from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore. Road trips are one of those mysterious things families feel compelled to do but no one knows why, like camping in the Mojave Desert or supporting the career of Miley Cyrus. I predict in the end it won’t be gay marriage that brings about the destruction of the American family. It will be the road trip.

After getting the kids settled into the back seat of our Honda Odyssey with their DVD players and movies, we hit the freeway. Once out of L.A., I was finally able to sit back, pop open my laptop, and begin jotting down a few ideas for this column. That’s when Kelly woke from his nap and grabbed the steering wheel from me, babbling some nonsense about “safety” and not using my computer while driving. So we switched seats.

Relocated to the passenger side, “safely,” I narrowed my list of possible topics to two: “Surviving Your Child’s K-Mart Taste” and “Parents I Hate.” Then suddenly — at 70 miles per hour — the transmission on our car blew out. And a column was born.

I’m an American, a proud gay American who was raised to believe that bad things don’t happen to Hondas. Yet ours has blown two transmissions in five years.

As we decelerated, the plume of smoke belching from underneath our hood began to panic my unflappable daughter. I tried to calm her as Kelly looked for a place to get off the road. “Think of it as an adventure, honey! We’re inside a fire-breathing dragon who just lost a leg!” She began to cry.

Somehow we managed to limp across four lanes of traffic to the next exit and turn down a hill into the welcoming parking lot of a visitors center that overlooked a picturesque lake. A visitors center with bathrooms and vending machines and other kids to play with. A visitors center we soon noticed had a chain-link fence around it and a propped-up sign gloating, “Closed for Renovations.”

“Look, an abandoned castle!” I tried, failing.

We called AAA Roadside Assistance and waited. Turkeys cook faster. An hour and 40 minutes passed as my iPod faded from Gaga to gone and the sun sank deep into the lake. The battery on our cell phone now dead, our world turned pitch black and eerie quiet.

When our Triple-A savior finally arrived on the scene, I could have jumped for joy. Instead, I froze. The white knight who showed up for our rescue turned out to be a physical composite of every high school bully I ever suffered: a tattooed skinhead-type, complete with soul-deadening stare and missing front tooth.

I hesitantly approached the massive flatbed tow truck idling before me and handed up my membership card through the cab window. Barely looking up, he grunted, “You know we only tow free for seven miles. After that it’s 10 bucks a mile. You got about 15 miles to the next town.” I asked if he could fit a family of four in his cab. His shrug said he’d manage.

After finishing his paperwork in silence, he finally lumbered down from his cab and stopped, getting his first, long look at my family. He stared at Kelly, then at me, then at our kids, finally speaking in the slow, guttural tones of a wife beater:

“These kids y’all’s?”

We answered that yes, they were.

Traveling as a two-dad family can have its challenges. Twice a year we visit my parents in South Carolina, a state so welcoming that its constitution bans not only same-sex marriage and civil unions but birth control and bagels. On its face, California might seem an improvement, until you find yourself stranded in the dark off I-5 in one of those counties where Prop 8 passed with 98 percent of the vote.

This man, whom I had now cast as the bastard love child of Ned Beatty and his horny hillbilly in the sequel to Deliverance, stared at us for what seemed a heart-thumping forever. Then he moved off. He spent the next few minutes hauling out huge, heavy chains with giant metal hooks. In my mind I pictured him encircling them around Kelly and me after he’d shot us, to more easily sink us to the bottom of that all-too-convenient lake.

After attaching the giant hooks to our Odyssey — of course, to complete our family portrait and ensure our suspect status, we were two men driving a minivan — he moved to the side of his flatbed and began pulling mysterious levers that caused his vehicle to groan as it slowly tipped its flatbed to meet our homosexual automobile.

This was too much for our youngest, James, a boy so Bam-Bam butch that for years we’ve referred to him as God’s joke on the gay daddies. By now he truly was jacked up by the adventure of it all. Biologically drawn to the smell of metal and grease like a moth to a blowtorch, James pushed forward and started peppering our AAA guy with questions: “Is our car dead?” “Do you have a bathroom in your truck?” “Who knocked out your tooth? Was it Batman?”

At this point Kelly intervened: “James, stay back so he can do his work.” Mr. Triple-A stopped what he was doing and looked at us. “His name’s James? I got a boy named James.” He had six kids, he informed us, all named after famous people in the Bible. Of course you do, I thought. A home movie began unspooling in my mind, starring a toddler Moses and barefoot Bathsheba helping their brother Goliath blow up frogs by sticking firecrackers up their butts.

Then he did something unexpected, something… perfect. This man whose menacing silence and sidelong glances had me rattled took off his work gloves and asked James to hold out his hands. He then began to gently pull the huge, oil-stained gloves over our son’s tiny fingers. Next he asked if James wanted to help him work the levers on the side of the flatbed so that he could haul our minivan up onto the truck. Mute with awe, James could only nod. As the chains grew taut and our car began to make its slow ascent up the ramp, James’ eyes widened to the size of the moon that had finally peeked through the clouds overhead.

Before long we were all crowded into the cab of the tow truck for the ride to the nearest town. I never would have thought it possible, but somehow the five of us fit. My family was safe. Jesse — he had a Biblical name, too — pulled out his phone and handed it to us so we could see pictures of his family. As the glow from the faces of his wife and kids lit up the inside of the truck, he looked at Kelly and me and said, “So… did you guys get married when y’all had that little window a few years back, before the Prop 8 thing?”

We said that we did. “That’s good,” he said. “My mom did, too,” he said. “She called up me and my brother and sister and told us, ‘Me and Maggie’s gonna have a wedding. You got a week and a half to figure out a way to get here.'”

From there on out, this man I was so sure I had pegged continued to upend my preconceived notions. When he learned we live in Hollywood, he told us that as a teenager he’d been bused in from the suburbs, commuting 20 hours a week to attend the Hollywood High magnet program in theater arts. Theater arts?

“Yep, it was great. For P.E. we took dance. Spent English readin’ Shakespeare. Instead of shop, we built sets for musicals. I loved it.”

He never charged us the $80 he should have for the extra mileage. Instead, he directed us to the one motel in that truck-stop town that had a swimming pool for the kids. Then he advised us which mechanic to see the next morning and which taco stands to avoid. And before lowering our big, gay minivan into the parking lot of the auto shop, he stopped to put his gloves on our daughter so she could work the levers this time, sending her into a spiral of rapture. After that he offered to drive us to our motel.

After we’d said our goodbyes and settled into our room, we made sure to sit the kids down and tell them how lucky our family had been that Jesse was the one sent to help us. Being kids, they got it: somehow the five of us fit.

After Kelly and the kids fell asleep, I got curious and Googled the name Jesse. Turns out it’s Hebrew for “God’s gift.”

 

* * * * *

William Lucas Walker is an Emmy Award-winning writer and producer whose television credits include Frasier, Will & Grace and Roseanne. He co-created the critically-acclaimed Showtime comedy The Chris Isaak Show. Bill and his husband Kelly are the parents of Elizabeth and James, born in 2001 and 2005. The children were gratified by the legal marriage of their parents in 2008, an event that rescued them from a life of ruinous bastardry.

Spilled Milk chronicles Bill’s misadventures in Daddyland. The first recurring humor column by a gay parent to appear in a mainstream American publication, Spilled Milk has regularly landed on the front page of The Huffington Post.

Follow William Lucas Walker on Twitter: @WmLucasWalker, @SpilledMilkWLW or Facebook: “Spilled Milk” by William Lucas Walker.       

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News

‘Antisemitism Is Wrong, But’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Pilloried for Promoting Antisemitic Claim

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6 hours ago

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May 1, 2024

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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was strongly criticized Wednesday after promoting a historically and biblically false, antisemitic claim while declaring antisemitism is wrong.

As the House voted on an antisemitism bill that would require the U.S. Dept. of Education to utilize a certain definition of antisemitism when enforcing anti-discrimination laws, the far-right Christian nationalist congresswoman made her false claims on social media.

“Antisemitism is wrong, but I will not be voting for the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 (H.R. 6090) today that could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews,” Greene tweeted.

The definition of antisemitism the House bill wants to codify was created by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Congresswoman Greene highlighted this specific text which she said she opposes: “Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.”

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What Greene is promoting is called “Jewish deicide,” the false and antisemitic claim that Jews killed Jesus Christ. Some who adhere to that false belief also believe all Jews throughout time, including in the present day, are responsible for Christ’s crucification.

Greene has a history of promoting antisemitism, including comparing mask mandates during the coronavirus pandemic to “gas chambers in Nazi Germany.”

Political commentator John Fugelsang set the record straight:

“If only you could read,” lamented Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq., CEO and Director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center. The Antisemitism Awareness Act “could not convict anyone for believing anything, even this historical and biblical inaccuracy. It only comes into play if there is unlawful discrimination based on this belief that targets a Jewish person. Do you understand that distinction @RepMTG ?”

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“Not surprising,” declared Jacob N. Kornbluh, the senior political reporter at The Forward, formerly the Jewish Daily Forward. “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has been accused in the past of making antisemitic remarks — including her suggestion that a Jewish-funded space laser had sparked wildfires in California in 2018, voted against the GOP-led Antisemitism Awareness Act.”

Jewish Telegraphic Agency Washington Bureau Chief Ron Kampeas, an award-winning journalist, took a deeper dive into Greene’s remarks.

“Ok leave aside the snark. The obvious antisemitism is in saying ‘the Jews’ crucified Jesus when even according to the text she believes in it was a few leaders in a subset of a contemporary Jewish community. It is collective blame, the most obvious of bigotries.”

“The text she presumably predicates her case on, the New Testament,” he notes, “was when it was collated a political document at a time when Christians and Jews were competing for adherents and when it would have been plainly dangerous to blame Rome for the murder of God.”

“Yes,” Kampeas continues, “that take is obviously one that a fundamentalist would not embrace, but it is the objective and historical take, and *should* be available to Jews (and others!) as a means of explaining why Christian antisemitism exists, and why it is harmful.”

CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere also slammed Greene, saying she “is standing up for continuing to talk about Jews being responsible for the killing of Jesus. (John & Matthew refer to some Jews handing over Jesus to Pilate,not Herod. But also: many, including Pope Benedict, have called blaming Jews a misinterpretation)”

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OPINION

MAGA State Superintendent Supports Chaplains in Public Schools – But Not From All Religions

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May 1, 2024

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Visitors to Oklahoma’s State Schools Superintendent’s personal social media page will notice a post vowing to “ban Critical Race Theory, protect women’s sports, and fight for school choice,” a post linking to a Politico profile of him that reads, “Meet the state GOP official at the forefront of injecting religion into public schools,” a photo of him closely embracing a co-founder of the anti-government extremist group Moms for Liberty, and a video in which he declares, “Oklahoma is MAGA country.”

This is Ryan Walters, a far-right Republican Christian nationalist who is making a national name for himself.

“God has a place in public schools,” is how Politico described Walters’ focus.

Last week the Southern Poverty Law Center published an extensive profile of Walters, alleging “hateful rhetoric toward the LGBTQ+ community, calls to whitewash curriculum, efforts to ban books, and attempts to force Christian nationalist ideology into public school classrooms.”

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“Walters is superintendent of public instruction, and public schools are supposed to serve students of all faiths, backgrounds and identities,” Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, told SPLC.

Walters is supporting new legislation in Oklahoma that follows in Texas’ footsteps: allowing untrained, unlicensed, uncertified, and unregulated religious chaplains and ministers to be hired as official school counselors.

“We heard a lot of talk about a lot of those support staffs, people such as counselors, having shortages,” Rep. Kevin West, a Republican, said, KFOR reports. “I felt like this would be a good way to open that door to possibly get some help.”

Walters praised West, writing: “Allowing schools to have volunteer religious chaplains is a big help in giving students the support they need to be successful. Thank you to @KevinWestOKRep for being the House author for this bill. This passed the House yesterday and moves on to the Senate where @NathanDahm is leading the charge for this bill.”

As several Oklahoma news outlets report, there’s a wrinkle lawmakers may not have anticipated.

“With the Oklahoma House’s passage of Senate Bill 36, which permits the participation of uncertified chaplains in public schools, The Satanic Temple (TST) has announced its plans to have its Ministers in public schools in the Sooner State. If the bill advances through the Senate, this legislation will take effect on November 1, 2024. State Superintendent Ryan Walters, a vocal advocate for religious freedom in schools, has endorsed the legislation. The House approved SB 36 by a 54-37 vote on Wednesday,” a press release from The Satanic Temple reads. “The Satanic Temple, a federally recognized religious organization, has expressed its dedication to religious pluralism and community service.”

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Walters responded on social media to The Satanic Temple’s announcement.

“Satanists are not welcome in Oklahoma schools, but they are welcome to go to hell,” he wrote.

Former Lincoln Project executive director Fred Wellman served up an equally colorful response.

“Hahahaha!!! You are an idiot,” Wellman wrote. “How did you not see this coming? Satanists, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Pastafarians…come one come all! After all you’re not trying to establish Christianity as the state religion are you? We had a whole ass revolution about that. There are history books about it…oh…right. Not your thing. What a fool.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) served up a warning.

“The state of Oklahoma cannot discriminate against people or groups based on their religious beliefs,” the non-profit group wrote. “Walters’ hateful message shows, one again, that he only believes in religious freedom for Christians and that he is unfit to serve in public office.”

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News

Potential Trump VP Pick Says ‘If You’re a Billionaire’ You Should Vote for Trump

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12 hours ago

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May 1, 2024

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One of the possible picks to be Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, seen as “rapidly ascending” the list, is urging billionaires to vote for the ex-president.

North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum “is quickly moving up former President Trump’s list of possible vice presidential picks because Trump’s team believes he would be a safe choice who could attract moderate voters,” Axios reported on Sunday. “Burgum is on a long list of VP contenders, but Trump’s rising interest in the North Dakota governor has been clear in recent weeks — and reveals his latest thinking about how he thinks his running mate could help him with undecided voters.”

Praising Governor Burgum, the National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty on Monday wrote he was “the only candidate in 2024 to easily exceed expectations in the debates.”

“He is a well-liked governor from a small state. He projects seriousness and sobriety, two qualities Pence also had that were important to balance the 2016 Republican ticket. Burgum is also good at championing Republican policy, including our desperately needed policies of energy abundance and supply-side reform. He is also the right age — 67 — with no signs of slowing down. Burgum needs to survive the millions poured into opposition research, but, if he does, I think he would bring credit and balance to the Republican ticket.”

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On Tuesday, Gov. Burgum, appearing on Fox News, told Laura Ingraham, “when you see someone who cares this deeply about this country, what he’s going through and what the Democrats and the liberal media is putting him through, and how he gets up and fights for every day people in America every day, and then his policies are all in the right direction.”

“If you’re a billionaire and you care about your shareholders, you care about your family and your grandkids, you should be voting for someone that’s going to bring prosperity to America and peace to the world, that’s what President Trump is going to do, that’s what he did for us when he was president,” Burgum claimed.

The Hill adds, “Ingraham suggested a lot of billionaires are still planning to support President Biden, especially those that are the ‘Wall Street types.’”

Last year, asked if he would ever do business with Trump, Bergum told NBC News, “I don’t think so,” and added, “I just think that it’s important that you’re judged by the company you keep.”

Some reports call Bergum a billionaire, while Forbes last year reported it “estimates Burgum’s net worth to be at least $100 million.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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