Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters: Know Your LGBT History

Friday, April 16, 2010

Know Your LGBT History - Designing Women

Generally, this is the time when I post my weekly Know Your LGBT History segment. Before I do today, I want to make a short mention of three items I may be posting about this weekend:

Judge strikes down adoption ban - Voters in Arkansas voted this law in specifically to keep lgbt couples from adopting. When the "will of the people" goes against the Constitution, then the "will of the people" needs to lose.

National Institutes of Health Director condemns anti-gay pediatrician group - That's three rebukes for the American College of Pediatricians (counting the ones from Dr. Gary Remafedi and the American Association of Pediatrics). I want more and I want to make them ALL known.

Lafferty: ENDA Will Allow The VA To Molest Our Disabled Veterans - How low can Andrea Lafferty go?" God! That's YOUR child.

Now onto Know Your LGBT History:

I got a request last week for Designing Women before one of the stars, Dixie Carter, passed away.

This show is legendary amongst the gay community because of its astute portrayal of the trials and tribulations of four Southern women and designing firm they own.

This particular episode (airing in 1987) is one of the most famous and is actually the first episode of Designing Women I ever saw. Naturally after it, I was hooked. It's called Killing All the Right People and it's about a friend of the women hiring them to decorate his funeral. You see, he is dying from AIDS.

At the same time, another one of the characters, Mary Jo (Annie Potts) has to speak at a PTA meeting advocating the position of teaching complete sex education and condoms in schools

The two storylines mix when a "friend" of the women gives her unsolicited opinion of the young man dying from AIDS:

The tirade she received from Dixie Carter's character (Julia Sugarbaker) was indicative of the nature of the show. Ironically, Carter was a bit more conservative than her character and she made a deal with the producers. For every tirade her character voiced, she got to sing in a later episode.

That's not to say that Carter was not supportive of the lgbt community because she was. And if you ask me, viewers got a doubly good deal. Carter was an excellent singer and her character's tirades were awesome. What the hell, here are a few:

Friday, April 16, 2010

Know Your LGBT History - Designing Women

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