Dirty Dishes	Dirty Dishes Archive

President Bush has never let gross incompetence stand in his way of making professional appointments. Recent (Republican) college grads are sent to oversee rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, (Republican) horse trainers do "a heck of a job" at domestic disaster relief, and (Republican) advocates of torture and police-statism find sinecures in the Justice Department and on the Supreme Court. Thus, Bush's recent nominee to be the next US Surgeon General, (Republican) James W. Holsinger, comes as no surprise.

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n an effort to bolster the United Methodist Church's claim that God (Republican?) hates homosexuality and that homosexuals are sinners deserving eternal damnation, Holsinger drafted a paper, "The Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality" wherein he argues that homosexuality is medically unnatural and unhealthy. (His stated fear was that Methodist "acceptance of homosexuality would drive away millions of churchgoers." He also believes homosexuality can be "cured.")

Holsinger's paper uses plumbing analogies to argue that male and female genitalia are complementary: "It has entered our vocabulary in the form of naming pipe fittings either the male fitting or the female fitting depending upon which one interlocks within the other." Body parts used for gay sex are not complementary, he wrote. "When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and diseases may occur."

Holsinger (as it turns out, an ironic name...) wrote that "anatomically the vagina is designed to receive the penis" while the anus and rectum which "contain no natural lubricating function" are not. "The rectum is incapable of mechanical protection against abrasion and severe damage... can result if objects that are large, sharp, or pointed are inserted into the rectum," Holsinger told the already-anti-gay Methodists. The Kentucky cardiologist goes on to condemn gay "anal eroticism," which, he claims, can lead to injuries and even death.

Now, Dawn is reasonably sure that Mr. Holsinger's fascination with gay sex and all things anal could be rewardingly analyzed by a skilled psychologist. But Dawn's observations will be confined to noting the obvious questions. Does Mr. Holsinger think that since our fingers weren't made by God to use a keyboard, that sufferers of carpal tunnel syndrome are being punished for sinful typing? Or that married heterosexual practitioners of "anal eroticism" merit divine condemnation? Or-- and this is the biggie-- that God especially loves lesbianism, since with girl-on-girl action, no penetrating penises are introducing germs or chafing internal membranes, however well-lubricated?

Let us hope the Senate confirmation process allows these and other salient questions to be posed to the man President Bush thinks should be in charge of American health policy.