Q Toon: The GOPranos

On Jennifer Welch's I've Had It podcast last month, and later on Don Lemon's eponymous Show, Hunter Biden confided that there is a cabal of closeted gay Republicans who take their self-loathing out on the rest of the LGBTQ+ community:

"Everybody in DC knows this: There is this closeted gay mafia, largely Republican, that exists in Washington, and everybody knows every single one of them, who's gay. The only reason that that is relevant is  because I believe that internal  conflict creates so much vitriol inside a person that they take it out on the rest of the world...

"And so what they do is their whole lives they've been closeted, and so you have this, like black ball inside yourself, this, like, blackened heart by the fact that you can't be who you wanna be, and so you take it out on everybody else."

Pressed to name names, Biden coyly replied, "I'm already in enough lawsuits, Don. Are you asking me if Josh Hawley [R-MO] is gay? Are you asking me if Stephen Miller [NSDAP-WH] is gay? Are you asking me if Speaker Johnson [R-LA] is gay?"

As if Don Lemon wouldn't already know who's gay in D.C. He's a journalist. He's got gaydar.

The topic came up upon the death of the famously closeted Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), at a time when the Republican Party from top to bottom has gone all-in on persecuting transgender persons, drag performers, and the gender non-conforming. If yethinks the party doth protest too much, you're not alone.

Republican policy may be "No Fats Or Fems" for the moment — paging the Secretary of Testosterone Testing the Troops! — but the party has established a record of moving the goalposts ever rightward.

Don't think your gym membership is going to keep you safe.

Too Jejune for Junes

Last Saturday, I asked what was so rare as a J.N. "Ding" Darling cartoon in June. The answer, for now, would be mine. 40 years ago, my June cartoons were rare indeed, whereas "Ding" drew nearly three dozen of them 100 Junes ago.

"South Atlantic," June, 1982

Starting out as a cartoonist for college newspapers, I didn't have anyone to publish anything I drew in June at first. But if I had an idea I really liked, I'd draw it anyway. Clearly, I had expended a considerable amount of thought coming up with this parody of "South Pacific" about the Falkland War between Great Britain and Argentina in May and June of 1982.

"Contingencywise," June, 1982

Drawing cartoons like this one about the resignation of Reagan's first Secretary of State, Al Haig, was useful in terms of keeping in practice and honing the craft. And in this particular case, beefing up the portfolio of work I would send out to newspapers who might be looking to hire a cartoonist.

"Isn't It a Shame..." in Quayle Quarterly, Winter, 1992?

Skipping ahead one decade, here's a cartoon I drew in June of 1992 that wasn't published for months later. It happens to be the only cartoon I drew in June of 1992 in spite of freelancing for the Racine Journal Times. Perhaps there were no local issues of interest that month.

Instead, I offered this to a national magazine, The Quayle Quarterly, devoted to the wet-behind-the-ears Vice President of the United States, J. Danforth Quayle. Quayle had spoken out strongly against Candice Bergen's TV sitcom "Murphy Brown" for a plot arc about the title newscaster choosing to become a single mother.

Given the Republican Party's committed opposition to abortion, those of you too young to remember 1992 might have expected Mr. Quayle to have applauded Ms. Brown's decision to carry a pregnancy to term. But those of us with a few more birthdays under the bridge remember that the abortion issue to the religious right was never about when a fertilized egg becomes a human. 

It was always about sex. Sex outside of marriage = always bad. Shame, shame, shame on you, Murphy Brown. And your little bastard, too.

With no other cartoons from June, 1992 to show here, let's now leap ahead another decade.

"Mixed Marriage," for Q Syndicate, June, 2002

To balance the drawing vs. publication discrepancy of my Dan Quayle cartoon, this next cartoon was actually drawn in December (hence the 2001 copyright tag) for release in June.

As helpful as it may be to have some ready-drawn cartoons on hand for those occasions when I wouldn't be sending a fresh new one for syndication, it is nearly impossible to predict what topics and issues will be a propos in the future. Routine events such as Pride Month, Thanksgiving, and Christmas only go so far, and might not coincide with a vacation, health crisis, or everyday writer's block.

Continuing the topic of trying to stay in the closet:

"Out to the Ballgame," June, 2002

Now, I don't remember whether there was some ballpark that observed Pride Month with a Cross-Dressers Get In Free Day in 2002. But this cartoon does remind me of the time a guy pretended to be Front Row Amy at a Milwaukee Brewers game some years back. 

Front Row Amy is a Milwaukee institution of sorts. For years, this young lady has had season tickets in a front row seat behind home plate. She always pays rapt attention to the game, keeps score, and applauds every pitch that goes the Brewers' way. You never, ever see her having refreshments of any kind.

She favors — exclusively — very low-cut tops that highlight her impressive cleavage. In tight TV shots of left-handed batters, you can't miss that cleavage in the background. These days, she always wears a facemask, but Brewers fans would recognize her anywhere.

She doesn't attend each and every home game; her seat may be empty, but there's usually somebody else more than happy to fill such a prime spot. And for one game, it was some dude who showed up in a long-haired black wig and a top that was as low-cut as any of hers.

Until a later inning when he switched to a Batman costume.

Finally, I could have drawn this Pride Month cartoon six months early, but I didn't.

President Obama had rescinded the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy back in December, 2010; and yes, military recruiters did start showing up at Pride events to enlist new recruits. 

The homophobic Right has since dropped the word "recruiting" in favor of the apparently more ominous sounding "grooming," so this cartoon doesn't work as well as it did ten years ago. I mean, this guy could be telling Darlene that he spied a hair stylist's booth or a dog show, but do you even find that sort of thing at Pride events? 

So, no, it doesn't make sense as an editorial cartoon with groomers instead of recruiters. But fear not: there are still opportunities for parody.

Some enchanted evening
You may see a groomer
With a sense of humor
across a crowded room.
You'd better decide
to hang up the phone
And leave any briders or groomers alone!  

Q Toon: NFL PDA

This week's cartoon probably comes too late for my monthlies and too early for my weeklies. With Adrian Peterson smiling back at me from my breakfast box of Wheaties, where else could I go this week?

Paul Berge
Q Syndicate✒Sep 25, 2014

EditorialCartoonists.com

By my count, this is the fifth cartoon I've drawn this year about the NFL — which is a lot, if you consider that I draw one cartoon for Q Syndicate per week. I'm already at one out of ten for the year.

I suppose something had to replace "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Q Toon: Who's Your Sweet Babeu?

This has been a story made for cable news, but of less interest to print media -- outside of Phoenix New Times, which broke the story in the first place. Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu was thrust out of the closet after a relationship went sour. His ex, a Mexican immigrant named Jose Orozco, suspected that Babeu was trolling the internet for sex, and stung him by arranging a rendez-vous under a fake identity on line.

(Originally, I wasn't going to include the boyfriend's name in this cartoon, but decided that the name Jose helped clarify that I wasn't trying to gloss over his being, say, Swedish. In the last couple days, however, Orozco's full name and photo have been made public on line and on television, so I will not keep referring to him as "the boyfriend" here. I should also explain that I use the word "illegal" in the cartoon instead of "undocumented" on the assumption that Babeu would favor such terminology.)

Babeu has denied the accusation that he threatened to expose that Orozco was in the U.S. illegally if he ever went public with their relationship. Babeu has, however, come out of the closet as a gay man as a result of the story, which he says is a relief to him.

We'll have to see how this affects his candidacy to represent Arizona's fourth district in Congress. He may be hurt less for the revelation that he's gay (this was once Jim Kolbe's district, after all) than by the incongruity of his relationship with Jose with his record as a hardliner against illegal immigration. Babeu first came to national attention four years ago as the sheriff walking beside John McCain in the "Build the Dang Fence" ad:

It isn't just the sexual relationship that conflicts with Babeu's record on immigration: he also employed Orozco to create and maintain his internet presence (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). If you need a moment to let that sink in, here it is again: the guy who went on national TV to decry undocumented immigrants in this country was simultaneously employing a guy he knew to be an undocumented immigrant to work for him.

Giving Orozco that job may have been what ultimately came back to bite Babeu in the ass: Orozco became suspicious of Babeu once he found the sheriff's accounts on gay dating sites Adam4Adam and Chino Valley E-news.

Buried deep in the New Times story is a development that may embarrass openly gay Democratic congressional candidate Matt Heinz. After Heinz broke with his party in the Arizona legislature to vote to allocate $5 million to combat border violence in Pinal County -- which is 70 miles away from the Mexican border -- one of Babeu's text messages that Orozco released reports that Babeu planned to spend the night with Heinz and his partner. (Note: The allocation was reduced to $1.7 million in the final bill.) Perhaps after a night of clubbing with the Heinzes, Babeu was simply being prudent by not driving home; but the implication of something further could doom both of their campaigns to succeed Gabby Giffords in Congress.