“Paladino and Orthodox Yids, too Old-Skool,” says Resident Heeb Faigela

When New York gubernatorial candidate, Carl Paladino, scrummed with Orthodox Yids (in what looked like a room seriously lacking in oxygen) warning of Homosexuality’s perils, I couldn’t help but focus on the heavy room tone and sweaty postures of the Hasids as Carl haltingly delivered the screed, editing on-the-fly the most scabrous comments from the script(ure).

I’ve often prayed while overheating in line at B&H Photo that cabalistic Hebraic numerology will net me the swarthiest payos’ed cashier, and that in some parallel universe he’s dropped the wigged wife and five toddlers for Bro’mance.  Like David and Jonathan from Biblical times, we’d bind ourselves in black leather Teffilin, cutting off circulation to our arms and other extremities, whipping ourselves into religious fervor. How sweet the Zelig-like fantasy of disappearing into the Yeshiva’s all-male environment, preparing for our future wives by practicing with the bed sheet glory-hole late night in the dormitory.

Paladino’s frum friends would have us believe that queer Hasids are a no-go, but who can forget boy babies in Brooklyn’s Jewish community catching STD’s from a Mohel with the clap? Why did he insist on giving head to newborns after chopping off their foreskin?  I’m pretty open-minded, but that’s too close to blood-libel for me.

While I’m not one of those Shiksa-chasing faigelas, I nearly lost all appetite for my co-religionists one afternoon at the legendary David Cinema porn theater in Times Square when, in my twink years, I stumbled upon a middle-aged carrot-bearded Hasid standing at a toilet cubical door waving a fist full of bills at me while pulling his putz. In retrospect perhaps I was a bit uptight and should have welcomed the opportunity to earn a little coin.

My friend and colleague Sandi Dubowski directed Trembling Before G-d – a ground breaking documentary film about the Orthodox gay plight that caused me to question why a self-respecting deviant would cling to their fag-bashing religious origins. Same-sex marriage is in, “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” is out. Homosexuality doesn’t have the underground lure of yesteryear. Lynching and queer youth suicide not withstanding, Paladino’s reservations about our lifestyle don’t hold as much water in this  post-Will and Grace landscape. With birthrates plummeting in every sector other than our devout brethren, the explosion of lesbians giving birth to Gaybies is humanity’s best bet for survival.

What do you think?