Badpuppy Gay Today

Tuesday, 8 April 1997

A sharp public exchange between two very different lesbian spokespersons erupted yesterday in New York City. It occurred belatedly after quoted remarks by Ann Northrop which had appeared a month ago in Badpuppy's GayToday, were suddenly highlighted by the Associated Press. Ms. Northrop's comments, based solely on the AP write-up, earned her the New York Post's "The Clone Ranger," title in an article by Jackie Rothenberg. "Male bashing reached a new low yesterday, with a lesbian activist suggesting that human cloning could make men obsolete.," wrote Rothenberg. The GayToday Badpuppy address, on both the AP bulletin and in the New York Post's article, was listed for readers' and editors' convenience.

Badpuppy's GayToday has had its news scoops on cloning prominently on display since February 27, yet the New York Post writer (April 6) assumed Northrop's remarks were made "yesterday." Cloning news, including GayToday reprints, were also sent in early March to all wire services by CRUF, Clone Rights United Front, led by Randolfe Wicker, a gay liberation pioneer. The Associated Press has, for its own reasons, delayed any recognition of the scoops for over a month. Now, Northrop's tweaking of males has been highlighted by AP, possibly, some say, to coincide with Ellen-mania, the growing national furor over the TV sit-com, Ellen. Scheduled for April 30, the show's principal character will come out of her closet, announcing she's a lesbian. Fundamentalist preacher, Jerry Falwell and other "concerned Christians" are publicly requesting that advertisers pull away from the program.

But why, it is being asked, did AP choose April 6 to release Northrop's remarks just as Ellen DeGeneres herself was coming out as herself, and not just as an actress? The Post ran Northrop's remarks next to its story of Ellen's coming out. Did the Associated Press purposely resurrect Northrop's frivolous and now month-old comments about male obsolescence, to flash them across AP wires to editors' desks worldwide? Was the purpose of the delayed story to make these comments coincide with announcements about Ellen? Northrop and others wondered about such possibilities.

The Associated Press approach to cloning purposefully ignored Randolfe Wicker, CRUF's male founder, and chose to emphasize instead the "no men needed" comments of Northrop, an independent non-CRUF member. These comments, it seems, were deliberately used, in the case of the New York Post, to incite readers to social disapproval of lesbians at the same time that reportage about Ellen's forthcoming TV episode increases.

Ann Northrop awoke on the morning of April 7, to reports that she'd been quoted in the Post, and that into the fray had walked Celebrity Culture Critic, Camille Paglia. (See Viewpoints & Interviews, GayToday). Paglia, says the Post, "blasted Northrop for her stupid, stupid remarks."

Northrop, quoted in an issue of The Advocate, had once said that if Paglia were to have power "she'd be dangerous."

"People (at present) aren't taking my remarks with the attitude I'd like to give them," says Northrop, who insists that what she said to GayToday in late February was merely her humorous reaction at the onset of the cloning controversies "when it was more fun at the beginning," and that she'd hoped her comments would be accepted as humor. Certain things flew across her mind on the subject because it was entirely new, she said, but these same things are to be taken in stride, as readers of her written work and fans of her broadcast outlets take them. Northrop, a serious social justice activist, has been a member of New York's ACT UP for nine years. "I spend more time with men than do most women in this country," she explained. Ms. Northrop's columns in LGNY are often touchingly expressive of her caring for gay male comrades-in-arms, in both the AIDS and gay struggles.

Still, the New York Post quoted Northrop as saying, "Men are now totally irrelevant, if cloning is, in fact, true and possible and becomes routine. Men are going to have a very hard time justifying their existence on the planet, I think." When asked by GayToday if she stood for any kind of gender superiority, she replied, "No, I just want people to be nicer to each other, and I don't see many men who are very nice to women or to each other." She agreed that men's liberation must be, for straight and gay males alike, a priority movement. "I'm seriously talking rift," she says, making clear that she feels men have a lot to find out about their assumed roles, "Do I think that human relations are screwed up? You bet I do." But gender genocide is certainly not within her purview, insists Northrop. "I'm not looking for domination. I'm looking for equality and peace and harmony, and we don't have that at the moment."

Camille Paglia, insisting that "both genetic lines of mother and father are needed to strengthen and advance the human race," and that "men zap the female ovum with their aggressive energy," denounced Northrop's commentaries to advance her own anti-gay activist, anti-feminist, anti-sexual agenda. "This is a typical example of the scientific illiteracy of the feminist and gay activist establishment," she told the Post. "Women need men--and I'm talking as an open lesbian."

"She is scientifically illiterate," responded Northrop, "because a cloned person would, in fact, continue the male part of the line as well as the female part of the line. So she is wrong to say that cloning would cut out that male energy."