03/14/2007
Garrison Keillor: A Bigot's Home Companion
Garrison Keillor longs for the good old days in this essay on what children need in Salon. You know, the days when the world wasn't bothered by all these non-monogamous, flamboyant homosexuals that want to raise children.
"I grew up the child of a mixed-gender marriage that lasted until death parted them, and I could tell you about how good that is for children, and you could pay me whatever you think it's worth."
This is from a man who has been married three times, and has two children with two different wives.
"Under the old monogamous system, we didn't have the problem of apportioning Thanksgiving and Christmas among your mother and stepdad, your dad and his third wife, your mother-in-law and her boyfriend Hal, and your father-in-law and his boyfriend Chuck. Today, serial monogamy has stretched the extended family to the breaking point."
This is from a man known for dumping a Prairie Home Companion producer who had been his longtime lover in order to marry his second wife. That marriage failed when he was discovered to be having an affair with his Danish language teacher.
And last, but not least:
"The country has come to accept stereotypical gay men -- sardonic fellows with fussy hair who live in over-decorated apartments with a striped sofa and a small weird dog and who worship campy performers and go in for flamboyance now and then themselves. If they want to be accepted as couples and daddies, however, the flamboyance may have to be brought under control. Parents are supposed to stand in back and not wear chartreuse pants and black polka-dot shirts. That's for the kids. It's their show."
It's not the first time he's gone off on gay marriage.
ADDENDUM: More from Dan Savage.
Stating the Obvious [salon
Posted 8:59 AM EST by Andy Towle in Garrison Keillor, Gay Marriage, Minnesota, News | Permalink
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Careful now, this is one sarcastic, dry wit you are talking about. If you read those things with the requisite smirk, they may not come across the same.
Posted by: Patrick | Mar 14, 2007 9:06:45 AM
So...how can we respond to this? I think we should go to the NPR website and write directly to his show and to our local stations. I will be doing so right now. What a hypocritical ass.
Posted by: doug | Mar 14, 2007 9:09:02 AM
Why do you let these bubble headed, uninformed oldtimers get you angry?
He's as clueless as some babbling old drunk at a corner bar. Let him babble.
Posted by: protogenes | Mar 14, 2007 9:13:35 AM
I'm willing to see the value in him, that he's not able to see in me. The truth doesn't need to be debated.... just lived. Much peace.
Posted by: jeff | Mar 14, 2007 9:13:36 AM
Garrison Keillor is a small weird dog with fussy hair. Period. LMAO
Posted by: Kermit | Mar 14, 2007 9:18:53 AM
It's OK, he still looks like a turtle.
Posted by: scientitian | Mar 14, 2007 9:19:17 AM
I agree with Patrick. Keillor has a very dry wit that could easily be misconstrued. That said, those comments sound pretty belittling when looked at in print. I'm willing to withhold getting angry though because he has done a lot for progressive causes in the past... the Minnesota tradition of "live and let live" is still pretty strong among people who were raised in that environment no matter how conservative they may be themselves.
Posted by: Brian | Mar 14, 2007 9:23:28 AM
His comments are so ridiculous, I hesitate to think we need defending. I've got three words for him "Ultimate Attribution Error".
Posted by: David M | Mar 14, 2007 9:24:14 AM
I can be pretty thin-skinned sometimes but Garrison's column doesn't bother me. If you've listened to or read his work then you know he has a rather ironic sense of humor- one that recalls the past with a slightly distorted reminiscence.
In these times of hyper-sensitivity I think _all_ of us would benefit from letting some things roll off of our collective backs.
Posted by: Ron | Mar 14, 2007 9:31:16 AM
Back in the summer of 1996, I was renting a house for the summer in Minneapolis before taking off to grad school in Indiana. The business consulting company I was working for was getting rid of some ancient computers and gave me one. Late at night, after working two jobs each day, I would log on to a then new and amazing AOL, get on a chat line, and even hooked up a couple of times. One of those nights, I get chatted up by a guy with a screen name of GKeillor. Yes, this guy was pretending to be Garrison, actually trying to prove that he was. When I said he could prove it by calling me, I gave him my number and he called. AFter having listened to Prairie Home Companion for years, it sure sounded like him, I was positive. After some lascivious conversation, he asked if I wanted to come to his house in Wisconsin, wife gone, kids gone. While I was intrigued, I didn't have a car, and thus couldn't. He asked if he could come to my place, a two hour drive. I said yes and gave him the address to the house next door, of a couple/friends I knew were on vacation. Two hours later, as I looked out from my darkened window, there he was, knocking on the neighbors door at 3am. Sounds crazy, but it's an event that I won't forget.
Posted by: joe | Mar 14, 2007 9:36:01 AM
Whatever dude. It's just his opinion. Express your own and live your own if you disagree. Stop being so stereotypically huffy.
Posted by: Javier | Mar 14, 2007 9:50:51 AM
Bwahahahahaha, I loved his description of stereotypical gay men. The truth hurts but it's oh so true.
Posted by: PC | Mar 14, 2007 9:57:09 AM
that's right, pile on Andy for pointing out what looks like, to me, a fairly prehistoric perspective. unbelievable.
Posted by: mark | Mar 14, 2007 10:01:53 AM
^5 Kermit, Your comment is perfection!
Posted by: rudy | Mar 14, 2007 10:09:42 AM
I don't agree that his comments are worth getting angry about. Keillor is not anti-gay. He is a satirist. He is satirizing. He's being hyperbolic. He's not telling people that being gay is wrong or that people shouldn't do it. He is not our enemy, and I will not join in making him so. There are some real dark forces that we're fighting, and Keillor is not one of them.
Posted by: PJ | Mar 14, 2007 10:14:27 AM
hmmm sounds like he got your panties in a twist. relax. he's not denouncing gay marriage he's just waxing nostalgic, which these days is not hard to do.
Posted by: ish | Mar 14, 2007 10:19:19 AM
Yep, and the Irish should eat their babies! Give me a break! He's a satirist...go to dictionary.com and look it up!
Posted by: Wayne | Mar 14, 2007 10:26:36 AM
Hmmm...this is the problem with the written word. Even within his nostalgia, it seems he's lightly slapping things like monogamy, all-white schools, and leftover boiled potatoes across the face. I don't believe he is necessarily a bigot but would welcome other people's thoughts.
Posted by: Rey | Mar 14, 2007 10:27:12 AM
I think the least "we" could do is ask him for a clarification...
And let me ask you, would a true "progressive friend" even go here in terms of subject matter? Isn't there something else he could write about?
I don't know -- his sense of satire seems really fucked up to me.
Posted by: Becks07 | Mar 14, 2007 10:33:30 AM
I have always been curious as to his "stardom" in Minnesota. he represents so many aspects of life here that I have been trying to escape from since about age 5.
While I have enjoyed some of his writing, mostly in the local paper, I find it mostly boring and "dated". However the elderly love him.
I can't believe multiple women have found him attractive!
Posted by: rock | Mar 14, 2007 10:49:21 AM
Keillor is generally a liberal, progressive thinker who has willingly taken on the Bush administration in extremely well-versed ways. He also has a very dry wit. I would be careful about discounting him so readily. And you know, if I were a kid, I wouldn't want my dads hanging around in the background wearing polka dot capri pants either, even though I would still love them anyway!
Posted by: Bill | Mar 14, 2007 10:54:32 AM
Wise insight from PJ.
Posted by: Rascal | Mar 14, 2007 10:54:35 AM
Um, hello? This is Scandinavian American "humor"--which is based entirely on understate "dry wit," as previous posters have pointed out. Keillor in this piece is actually making fun of antigay people. You have to listen to his show and read his writings to get it--and it doesn't hurt if you've got crazy old Norwegian or Finnish aunts and uncles, crazy here being redundant with "Norwegian" or "Finnish," etc.
In other words, there is a huge intercultural misunderstanding here if you read this text as anything but satire--Keillor is not antigay. He is as blue as blue gets, and the text has the opposite intent than the surface reading you're giving it here!
Posted by: ebsur | Mar 14, 2007 10:58:55 AM
it's called political satire. Garrison Keillor is famous for using it. He isn't homophobic in the least. He is as BLUE as san francisco...
Posted by: J | Mar 14, 2007 11:13:17 AM
If Andy keeps up this kneejerk whining, nobody's going to be listening to us soon. We need to pick our fights - going after somebody who's obviously joking around only makes us look foolish. What's next? Is he going to go after South Park because Mr. Garrison presents a 'negative stereotype'?
Then again, this could just be the result of sloppy reporting on the part of Mr. Towle. He does have a penchant for just grabbing random RSS feeds and reposting them here - with little or no background research.
Posted by: Dan | Mar 14, 2007 11:16:34 AM