“The world will always welcome lovers, as time goes by.”
Herman Hupfeld As Time Goes By, 1931
Maybe not always. But those sentimental lyrics from the Depression-era ballad usually ring true in Toronto.
Only rarely does this corner hear unsentimental sounds from readers who’ve had it up to wherever with the paper’s coverage of gays and lesbians.
That’s because live-and-let-live is a predominant theme in Canada’s largest city, where the coat of arms says: “Diversity Our Strength.”
But trust me, some off-colour notes were sounded on the Bureau of Accuracy answering machine last weekend.
A few (from callers who chose anonymity) could charitably be characterized as unprintable in a family newspaper. Or homophobic.
The phone began ringing when The Saturday Star gave a chunk of Page 1 to a 129-page Ontario Superior Court ruling in favour of same-sex marriage.
In both significance and content, the decision conjured up Hupfeld’s lyrics (even though he wrote the song in a decidedly heterosexual context):
Well, it’s still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die.
But irate callers weren’t commenting on the case. A few admitted they didn’t get to the news story.
The Kiss had stuck in their craws.
“It’s about your front-page picture of the kissing male couple,” one said. “It’s sad to have this in the paper.”
“I understand we must be tolerant and accepting, but you don’t need to thrust this in our faces. It’s in bad taste,” said a second.
“Your paper is saturated with homosexuals. I’ve had enough,” added a third. “Disgusting.”
And a fourth: “I’m appalled. Come on, how sick and perverted and twisted are you? It’s wrong, and it’s evil.”
“I’m a heterosexual male, married with children,” one said. “I don’t consider myself homophobic. I’m a fairly liberal person and a schoolteacher.
“I don’t think there was any need for the picture of two men kissing. You should have had them just sitting there. If you were trying to promote tolerance, you didn’t succeed. Most people are heterosexual,” he said.
Do you get the drift?
Yet, by all reports, The Kiss as captured by Star photographer Tony Bock, was celebratory, unscripted, unposed and spontaneous.
At a news conference after the landmark ruling, Michael Leshner and his partner, Mike Stark, had pecked, while another couple, Gail Donnelly and Barbara McDowall, watched happily.
Deputy managing editor Joe Hall seemed surprised at the sour reaction to an important story and a news photo that telegraphed the high spirits of those who stand to benefit from the court ruling.
“The Star is simply reflecting life in this city in 2002,” he said, denying the newsroom has an agenda other than to cover legitimate news.
I believe Hall.
For sure, gay/lesbian issues and events Gay Pride Week, Marc Hall’s successful court struggle to take a male date to a Catholic high school graduation prom, even an international convention of 1,000 gay square dancers are in the public eye.
But it’s incomprehensible that a serious paper would ignore or downplay such stories. That would really get the phone ringing off the hook.
As for love:
You must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.
