Tim Tebow's goal in college wasn't to win the Heisman Trophy or National Championships. With the Broncos, being MVP or winning a Super Bowl are secondary motivations. Tebow's primary purpose in everything he does is to witness to the world and bring the Word of Jesus to us all. And he has done that in a way few in this world ever have.
Regardless of my differences of opinion with him about religion and my never-ceasing stream of Twitter hatred for the guy whenever the Broncos play, I have to admit, Tim Tebow has made me understand Jesus in a way I don't know if I ever could without him.
From what I understand, Tebow is the Jackie Robinson of Christians in the NFL. After years of passing over strong, talented Christians in the draft, Tebow finally posed figure too large to ignore, so Denver reluctantly chose him and vowed to keep him on the bench his entire (short) career. But Tebow's talent and the overwhelming cries of the usually silent minority of Christians in this nation could not be ignored, leading him to disprove the critics by stepping in and lifting a terrible team to a win in the Super Bowl despite the protestations of the NFL, the networks, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and the Muslims, Jews, and atheists who run this country.
Unfortunately, that was not true. In fact, Tim Tebow is not a very good quarterback and Christians are rarely quiet about anything. Neither of those things, however, is a reason for me to hate him as personally as I have.
Say what you will about his goody-goody personality and overt religious zealotry, Tim Tebow truly believes what he says. In America, Republican contenders for President, who cheat on their cancer-ridden wives and suggest repealing child labor laws, make a daily point of reminding us how much they love Jesus and his teachings. Soon, Mitt Romney will secure the Republican nomination and will be able to shift the attention to how much more he loves Jesus than President Obama does. And, in turn, President Obama will have to make the case he loves Jesus more because a huge voting block in this country justifies its decisions at the polls with statements like, "Sure, President Bush ruined the economy by sending us to war with a country that posed no legitimate threat to us resulting in the deaths of millions, but he prays every day and I don't think Gore does that."
For so many in the public eye, religion is an accessory to be worn when one wants to appear good, noble, kind-hearted. But just as it's possible to wear a Broncos shirt or baseball cap without being a true Denver fan, only a minority of any religion's followers will show any devotion beyond the surface appearance.
Tim Tebow is the rare exception whose religious beliefs come from a pure belief in the Bible. While I may not agree with what he believes, it's refreshing to be able to accept it at face value. A sect of Tebow fans likes to put forward the idea that the quarterback might actually be the son of God, and I can understand why.
Tim Tebow's wins on the football field defy all reason. While the word "miracle" gets overused, there's a statistical improbability of a guy playing as awfully as Tebow winning even one game that can't be ignored. Tim Tebow is humble. Tim Tebow shares his beliefs and feelings with the world because he wants us to be--and believes we can be--better people. Tim Tebow loves his enemies. Tim Tebow seems like a genuinely good, noble, kind-hearted person.
His followers, however...
Before he'd started rookie training camp in 2010, Tebow's jersey was the highest selling jersey in the league. Despite his own insistence he had a lot to learn before he could be an effective NFL quarterback, Jesus freaks lambasted Denver's coaches and management for not starting Tebow. Every Tebow win fueled the blind devotion of his followers and made them less bearable.
And, worst, his winning ways drew the attention of non-football fans to the NFL, which drove network and league executives to make "All-Tebow, All-the Time" the strategy for the entire season. Watch a Buccaneers-Texans game and discussion among the announcers will turn to Tebow. NFL.com recently posted a gallery of Photoshopped images illustrating what it would look like if Tebow impregnated various celebrities. Every week this year, whether he was playing or not, one of the headlines on ESPN.com, CNNSI.com, or Yahoo's NFL page featured the word "Tebow."
And, thus, Tim Tebow accomplished his ultimate goal. He made me, a devout atheist, understand Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross in a way I never had seen it before. Because while I know Tim Tebow is a good man and I have nothing against him personally, his followers are ruining football for me.
It's hard to explain my friendship with Ryno. There's nothing particularly bizarre about it, but trying to explain it is difficult because most people never had and never will have a friend like him. I assume it's the way Harrison Schmitt must feel when talking about being an astronaut with anyone other than Buzz Aldrin or Charles Duke or the only other nine guys who have ever set foot on the moon.
To oversimplify, Ryno is generous beyond reason. I couldn't begin to guess the number of times he's bought me lunch or dinner, but it's a strong three-figured one. He's had to have dropped well over $1000 on sushi alone. And if you offer to pay your share, he usually waves your money back into your wallet dismissively. When he doesn't, you can't help but feel he's only letting you give him cash to boost your self esteem. After all, odds are he's going to use that $20 you slip him to buy your kid something she mentioned she was passingly interested in the last time she was at his house.
He bankrolled my first year of curling, something I'd been wanting to try since I was in high school, including buying our team shirts and getting me my own broom for my birthday.
And I hate to think of where we would be if his wife, our pediatrician, hadn't provided free medical care for my family during all my unemployed and uninsured years, but I'm pretty sure at least one of my kids would be dead, the other would have polio, and I'd be hobbling around on one foot.
He takes us to Vegas at least twice a year--always for the opening two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament in March and for our fantasy football draft in August and usually once or twice more when he gets free room offers--and when I say "we," our fantasy football league has ten owners. In each of my last five trips to Vegas with Ryno, I have eaten a steak that cost more than I'd spend on a weekly grocery trip. Last year, we're stayed in the Beatles Suite at the Sahara. The year before that, we were in a suite at the Bellagio.
Buying him a present for Christmas.
As you might guess, if Ryno wants something, he buys it for himself on a whim. Afterall, if you want something, there's a good chance he's bought it for you on a whim. If there's something he wants but hasn't bought for himself, it's not something I can afford. Our friend, Hollywood, and I were discussing this two weeks before Christmas, and as the conversation went on, we got downright surly.
"How dare he shower us with vacations to Tampa and Penn & Teller shows and tickets to the Diamondbacks game in Friday's Front Row on Garden Gnome night and opportunities to be on Fox NFL broadcasts and zamboni rides at Coyotes games where we happen to meet childhood idols and tickets to every Buccaneers game in Phoenix in the past 15 years?" I grumbled.
"If he's going to make it this difficult to get him a good gift," Hollywood said, "we shouldn't even try. We should get him a terrible gift. That would teach him a lesson!"
It was a stroke of genius. "What do you get the man who has everything he wants?" I cackled. "Something he doesn't want!"
Hollywood then suggested we book a sitting at a Sears portrait studio and get an awful portrait of ourselves in one of their classic cheesy poses. You know, like one of us sitting down while the other on stands with his hands on the first one's shoulder...
But instead of going to Sears, I called my old friend Tate Hemlock. He's shot my author bio photos and thousands of shots of women in various stages of undress. He loved the idea and admitted to a strange obsession with bad family portraits from the 1970's and 80's. We set up a session for Thursday.
Hollywood drove two hours up from Tucson. We had dinner with Ryno and Teacher Dave, and then drove another hour north to Tate's home. We were introduced to Kennedy, who was hanging out and staying with him for a few days. As we discussed what we wanted to do, Tate showed us some stuff from his most recent shoots, which made Hollywood's eyes go buggy as he realized he was looking at the same girl who'd just shook our hands in the living room.
We set up a backdrop in what would normally be a dining room. The shoot was temporarily delayed, however, because the backdrop had an ice cream stain on it from a previous shoot. Tate sliced off the ice creamy portion and we went to work, starting with the aforementioned pose.
Obviously, we couldn't pick just one image to be our portrait, so I got on Photoshop and created two collages, which we then printed at Costco in 16x20 and 14x18 sizes.
We framed them, but, unfortunately, our plan of buying the same size frame that holds all of Ryno and his wife's wedding photos, taking that down, hiding it in the garage, replacing it with mildly erotic images of ourselves, and seeing how long it took before someone noticed was ruined by the fact said frame is massive and would have cost about $150-200.
In the end, I spent more time, money, and effort to get a terrible gift for someone who has been nothing but good to me and my family for the better part of two decades than I did on any of the "good" presents I got for anyone else this year. So let that be a warning to anyone planning to be my friend!
"When exactly did you realize you were gay?"
When my friend Dan came out of the closet several years ago, I was able to ask him the question that I found most interesting about his sexuality. I remember first recognizing that I was attracted to a girl in kindergarten. I still vividly remember seeing naked breasts when John Belushi climbed that ladder in Animal House at the age of eight and thinking, "Yes, this is something I enjoy and would like to see more of." 
I first saw a Playboy in February 1982 and first got caught by my mother while reading a Playboy in March 1982.
There was never any question for me whether I was straight or gay, and I wondered whether it was as simple a realization for Dan, and, if it was, why did he wait until his late-20's to tell all of us? Considering many of us had our suspicions for several years leading up to his ultimately coming out, I wasn't sure if he'd waited our of fear of rejection and disapproval or out of indecision.
"I guess I realized I was gay kind of the same way I realized I was an atheist," he explained. His analogy noted the similarities between his Catholic upbringing and the social moires of heterosexuality. "When you're a kid, everyone tells you there's a god and you believe in him because you just assume everything your parents say must be true. Then I reached a point where I was going to church, but was thinking, 'I don't know that I really believe this.' Then I was agnostic for a while, but then reached a point where I wondered why. I didn't believe in God or Jesus or any of the pillars of Christianity, but there was a part of me still clinging to the idea that maybe my parents were right." Just as he realized he didn't believe in Catholicism and eventually that he wasn't agnostic, Dan also realized he didn't conform to the boy-girl dynamic he'd been told was correct his entire life, and, furthermore, he wasn't bisexual or "just curious." He was gay.
The act of coming out has been one of the most powerful tools in the fight for gay rights. The simple act of telling those around you that gays aren't "those people," but that they are our friends and family members. They are people we loved before they revealed they were gay and and that revelation should in no way affect our love. When I think of any issue affecting gays, it's impossible for me to think of "gays" as a faceless mass of "them." Anyone who wants to deny the rights of gays to visit their partners in the hospital wants to deny those rights to Dan... and to Jarvis and Derrick and Tim and Scharia and several other gay people I know and fully fleshed out human beings and not just one-dimensional caricatures based solely upon their sexual preference.
The more gays who come out, the greater the tolerance for homosexuality increases. The reason support for gay rights is highest in places like New York, New England, and the West Coast is not simply a reflection of liberal leanings in those regions, but of the fact that gays are more open in those areas and are seen as real people instead of as just a bunch of fuckin' faggots as they so often are by guys who have never met an actual live homosexual because they live in and have never had any desire to get out of places like Wewahitchka, Florida.
Surveys have shown that atheists are the most distrusted minority in the United States. The typical American would rather have his daughter marry blacks, Jews, Muslims, Mexicans, even gays before she marries an atheist. Yet at the same time, trends are showing fewer people attend church or claim any particular religious belief. The term "spiritual but not religious" gets thrown about fairly easily. With each generation, religious devotion drops. In other words, with each generation, more and more people realize, like Dan, that maybe their parents were wrong.
But if there are potentially more atheists than at any time in the past several decades, why are atheists still so hated? Because too many atheists are afraid to admit their lack of belief.
Just as coming out has been so powerful in the advancement of gay rights, it can do the same for atheists. I make no attempts to hide my feelings about religion, and I know several other atheists who are the same way. 
Letting your friends and family know that you are living a moral life without the guidance of a mythological overlord or a millennia old book puts a face to godless America. Those who care about you can come to the realization that atheists can't just be dismissed as irrational father-haters who've been deceived by Satan into giving into peer pressure to not believe in God. Most importantly, coming out may help those non-believers around you who are not brave enough to do so themselves yet to find that strength.
Certainly there are those who will not accept, but that is not the fault of the atheist. I have a friend who routinely insists on posting comments on Facebook telling me she'll pray for me or that god exists in the hope that some morning I will wake up and realize I do believe afterall, as though this was just some silly phase.
I can only wonder if she'd tell Dan that she's hopes he'll find the perfect girl.
On Facebook, you can declare yourself a fan of anything you like. And since there are a bunch of other people who like stuff you like, you can band together and form groups to let everyone in the world know how much you all like the stuff you like.
Unfortunately, there's no editorial oversight of what groups exist and are being created. So if you decide you're a huge fan of Hugh Laurie and you absolutely need everyone to know, you could go form a Hugh Laurie page without noticing there are already several others.
No, the harm comes when you decide the thing you like is so important to you and so perfectly defines you as a person that you have to join every friggin' group tangentially related to whatever it is you like. Then, as your friend, I log on and check my News Feed only to have it positively choked with announcements that you joined "Its possible that I would give my life to do Hugh Laurie," "Gene Wilder looks kind of like Hugh Laurie," "hugh laurie is the hottest oldie in the world," "Je suis Fan du Sosie du Docteur House !!! ( Hugh Laurie)," "Hugh Laurie is such a BAMF!" and "Hugh Laurie is a total BAMF!"
As a result, I like you a lot less and seriously consider removing you as a friend. You cease to be a real person to me and instead become a caricature. You're just a one-dimensional Hugh Laurie fan with nothing else to offer the world but a blind adherence to everything we've come to expect of the stereotypical Hugh Laurie fan. There is nothing unique about you and you do nothing to dispel the idea that I can write off you and all the other Hugh Laurie fans in the world as being nothing but a bunch of cookie cutters.
I have one gay acquaintance who epitomizes this for me. Every time I log onto Facebook, I am given a list of all the new groups he has joined. Boycott Carmark Cinemas and Boycott All Carmark Cinemas. Revoke Prop 8, Protest Against Prop 8, Repeal Prop 8, and Prop 8 Should Be Revoked.
Then to top it off, he's also recently become a fan of Madonna, Cirque du Soleil, San Francisco, "Will & Grace," Margaret Cho, Liza Minelli, "Queer as Folk," Angel from Rent, Barbara Streisand, "Ab Fab"... ugh! Enough already! We get the point! You're gay and you like all the stereotypical things stereotypical gays like! Why not just become a fan of "man ass" and stop being so coy?!?In fact, at this point, I kind of doubt he really is gay. Think about it this way. If he was a football player or a wrestler or in the army and his Facebook account was being updated daily with announcements that he was now a fan of "Naked Chicks" and "Monster Trucks" and "Totally Not Being Gay" and he joined groups like "I don't like the way those gay dudes look at me" and "Get teh GAYZ out of Disneyland!" and "Preserve Marriage - Yes on Prop 8!", you'd suspect he was compensating for something. So his insistence on reminding everyone who knows him every day that he is here, he is queer, and we'd better get used to it makes me suspect he's really into chicks and is just embarrassed to tell everyone who have come to expect homosexuality from him.
In truth, his gay pride is a big part of what is making anti-gay legislation like shooting fish in a barrel for the religious right. Just as Barack Obama has moved the civil rights struggle to a new level, gays have to understand that the very tactics they used to bring gay rights to the national spotlight are now being used to rob them of those rights and failure to change strategy will only result in more defeats and more rights lost. Later this week, I'll lay out the new gay rights strategy I hope to see adopted because the one in place isn't working.
The Republican Part of Arizona must have really be pessimistic about the Grand Old Party's chances in this election. Party leaders pushed to get a right-wing extremist proposition on the ballot to ensure the base turns out. I guess having a popular, hometown Republican senator running for the highest elected office in the land wasn't enough? In a state that's gone blue once since 1950, what makes anyone think there's a need to add an anti-gay marriage amendment to the ballot to get the right wing nutjobs out to the polls?
Proposition 102 is completely unnecessary. If two gay guys get married down the street, it doesn't mean you love your wife any less. Nowhere is the complete pointlessness of the proposition more evident than in the Arguments "For" Proposition 102 section of the Ballot Propositions & Judicial Performance Review Publicity Pamphlet issued by the Arizona Secretary of State.
A simple way to judge if you have a strong argument is whether it can be used just as easily against you as it is for you. For example, if you begin your case with:
A husband and wife seeing their newborn baby for the first time...
Children with mom and dad at the family dinner table...
A holiday gathering at grandma and grandpa's home...
These are some of the things that come to our minds when we think about marriage and family. Aren't these traditions worthy of protecting for our children and grandchildren? Marriage brings happiness, love, and hope for the future.
At this point, you can go two directions. If you're pro-gay marriage, you say:
Why should that happiness, love, and hope be denied to anyone just because of sexual preference?
If you're anti-gay marriage, you say:
God hates fags, so let's make sure they never get the opportunity to experience any of those things or Jesus will cry.
This would be an inherently bad argument, just as pretty much every other case presented on the above page winds up being, though some are stupider than others. Like:
We are expecting our first child in November. It is something we have dreamed about our whole lives. Since we're expecting, we thought it would be fun to watch the movie Father of the Bride Part II. 
Also, of all the Steve Martin movies to base your political views upon, couldn't you pick one that got better than a 44% rating at Rotten Tomatoes? At the very least, couldn't you have used Father of the Bride? It's like making a reference to "Jason from Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood" as though that will strike a different chord than "Jason from Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning.
Sorry to get side tracked, let's get to the ambiguous set up:
In the movie there are images of family gathered around the dinner table, supporting one another at the hospital and encouraging one another through difficult times. The movie filled our hearts with warmth and appreciation for the simple joys in life as it promotes traditional family values. Such traditions develop over time from the tried and true finest ways to experience the best of life.
Pro-Gay Marriage: Why should we withhold these traditions we hold so dear from anyone?
The concept of traditional marriage and creating a family unit is becoming scarce and by many classified as "out of style". However, research indicates that children who grow up in fatherless or single parent home are turning to other sources of support instead of parent(s). As a result due to the lack of dual parental support and guidance this has created a society with increased poverty, crime, uneducated individuals, and increased taxes to name just a few.
Pro-Gay Marriage: So if kids need a father to grow up well-adjusted, having two should be twice as valuable! We cannot underestimate the importance of a couple, regardless of their sexual preference, working as a team when we face the staggering problem laid out in the previous sentences.
Anti-Gay Marriage: But poverty, crime, poor education, and increased taxes are a small price to pay to be assured that God's hatred of faggots remains law of the land and Jesus doesn't have to think about two dudes doin' it.
This last argument also falls into the same trap many of the other arguments do, using statistics and studies that make a case against single parenthood and for the importance of a father remaining in his children's lives. Such as:
Studies have shown that children raised in homes with a father and mother married to each other are much more likely to stay out of crime and poverty, and to have stable marriages themselves some day.
Statistics verify over and over that children who are raised in strong families with a mother and a father are more likely to be healthy and productive citizens in our neighborhoods, our communities, and our nation.
Research indicates many benefits for children raised by a mother and father, including:
Men, also, receive benefit from marriage to a woman, including:
All that said, I personally oppose gay marriage. For that matter, I oppose straight marriage. There is no reason the government should be regulating marriage. Allow anyone who wants to enter into contractual partnership with anyone (or anything for that matter) do so and let churches define "marriage" and who can get married. Let's see some schism!
Rent was on FX tonight, so I finally got to see the movie version. I'd been curious since two or three years ago, I worked wardrobe on the tour of Rent when it came to Phoenix. It had been on sale for $6 at Target, but I held off, certain that would be six bucks I'd regret wasting.
As with most musicals, I automatically assumed it was crap. For the most part, I was right, but there were some songs that were catchy enough I was willing to illegally downloaded them to my iPod. There was even one powerful scene (in the stage version--it didn't translate well to film) that surprised me. A hot stripper tries to seduce her musician neighbor, but he pushes her away by being a jerk--not because he doesn't like her, but because he does. He's HIV-positive and realizes that a relationship with him would be a death sentence for her, so he's accepted that he'll be alone forever.
Unfortunately, this scene is defused later when he finds out she's HIV-positive too and they can be together. It might have had some impact if there wasn't a similar scene earlier where two guys happily relate to each other in song that they are both HIV-positive and therefore can go have sex.
I understand, Rent, you're challenging our perception of the loose, lawless world of artists, but that's the same challenge twice! Come up with something else.
Actually, the main problem with Rent is that it keeps trying to challenge our perceptions of a world we're not a part of, but it's always with terrible, terrible garbage. But since we're being challenged by the crap, the cast tries to convince us it isn't crap by being overly enthusiastic. There's a scene at a spoken-word protest show (though how it's a protest I don't really understand) where a woman rides in on a motorcycle to cheers that make you wonder if the characters are supposed to have never seen a motorized vehicle before and suspect they are witnessing history. She goes on stage and tells a story about a cow that jumps over the moon and starts mooing and the crowd moos along as if this is powerful, insightful stuff. Meanwhile, there are stuffy guys in suits who don't get it, which sends the message to the audience, "Do you want to be cool or one of these jerks? If you don't get it, you sure ain't cool..."
The following scene, in fact, has the artists confront the suits by explaining what they stand for... which is pretty much anything Middle America might find objectionable.
| "Look at me, suburban dung," Manson told Wesley. "Does this shock you?" When Wesley replied no, he said Manson became "petulant." Recalled Wesley: "He started stamping his feet and shaking his fists, saying, 'What do you mean no? Aren't your uptight, puritanical sensibilities offended? Don't you want to censor me so you don't have to confront the ugly truth I represent?' So I say, 'Well, not particularly.' Then, after a long pause, he says, 'Well, screw you, jerk!' and walks off sulking." |
The character who best epitomizes Rent's flaws is Angel. Angel is a drag queen who is totally awesome and an inspiration to everyone and makes life worth living. At least that's what the cast makes sure to tell us every five minutes. Call it the Poochy-effect. When Angel isn't on screen, everyone talks about what Angel might be doing at that moment--which makes for a lot of dull conversations after Angel dies in the second act.
Never mind that they just met Angel a few days earlier, he's been their reason for living, for dying, for laughing, and for crying. And consider how they meet Angel. When Mark and Roger's friend Tom comes by with some money, he introduces them to Angel who... well, does this...
At the end of the movie, Angel literally becomes an angel. When the stripper from above dies of a heroin overdose, she suddenly snaps back to life revealing that she'd been headed toward a warm light, but Angel told her to go back.
Add to all this that Rent's attempts to make the artistic, Bohemian lifestyle seem cool all fall flat. Roger is supposed to be a struggling musician who wants to write one song that will be memorable enough to live on after he dies of AIDS, but really is just a no-talent hack who takes an entire year to write a love song with all the romanticism of a junior high student pining for the girl in second period math who's started to develop boobs. Mark is a film maker who is always shooting for his documentary and turns down a good paying job for a news magazine show to complete it. In the movie (I'm not sure about on stage), they actually show his film, and if it's a documentary, so is every home movie your grandfather shot on 8mm film. It's pretty much just his friends waving at the camera, but from the musical accompaniment I get the impression it's supposed to be powerful, visionary stuff.
The next time anyone tells you about how things were better back in the good old days of the 1950's, just remember this was required viewing in public education and was produced by a government agency:
Furthermore, isn't most of the advice given in this film just good advice regardless of sexual orientation? Don't get into the car with a stranger because he might be a homosexual! How about "don't get into the car with a stranger because he's a stranger"? When some bowtie-wearing goof at the park offers you a ride home but instead drives you out into the desert, decapitates you, and leaves you for the coyotes to eat, is it less horrific knowing he doesn't enjoy musical theater or collect chotchkes?
Incidentally, there is a sister film for this, "Girls Beware." It tells the story of high school girls who get murdered, gang raped, and pregnant. On a note similar to the Jimmy probation one from above, the pregnant girl is taken away by juvenile services.
I, for one, think J. Michael Straczynski deserves a big pat on the back for being so brave. If you haven't read the latest issue of Squadron Supreme--and for shame if you haven't... unless you just hate feminism and are threatened by strong, empowered, self-reliant female characters--the story takes place during and after the team fights an army of a hostile Middle Eastern country. After the battle is over, we learn a little of the background story of Inertia, a woman capable of redirecting kinetic energy.
Her story is a sad one, but one that must be told!
Inertia is unlike any other character in comics. First, she is a woman, but she doesn't rely on men to take care of her and protect her. No, sir (or ma'am as the case may be)! Instead, she takes care of herself and is just as capable of kicking butt as any of the big boys.
Second, she wears skimpy outfits and has a lean, muscular body. She is beautiful and isn't afraid to show it. I will, however, draw attention to the fact Gary Frank's rendering of her makes her seem a little flat-chested. She appears to be no larger than a B-cup, though she wears a sportsbra, so she may be larger. Either way, I would encourage Frank to be bolder and give her large mammaries. Do not try to hide her femininity! If anything, fanboys who are afraid of strong feminist icons like Inertia should be visually assaulted by their feminine virtues.
Third, she grew up with a father who was unloving and who cheated on her mother. He is very mean to her and suspects that her powers are a result of her sinfulness. At one point, when he realizes he cannot harm her by hitting her, he opts instead to hit her mother. This abusive background helps to shape her worldview.
Fourth, she is a lesbian. The plight of homosexuals may be taboo dinner conversation in this country, but Squadron Supreme is pushing it to the forefront of the national consciousness by confronting the homophobes out there in a way no other comic is daring enough to do: with images of sexy girls kissing each other! Take that, Ma and Pa Kettle!
But last, and most important, she is the victim of rape. If you thought lesbianism was verboten, just while Middle America is reeling from that revelation, we're hit with this hot button issue. Straczynski is one of the few writers, comic or otherwise, willing to take on the subject of sexual assault. What's really interesting is the way he frames it and the fact that it took place early in Inertia's life to have it truly become a motivating factor behind what she does and who she is.
Rape, it seems, can be a traumatic experience for some women and Inertia is one of them. In fact, it is still something she thinks about even though it happened years ago. This powerful juxtaposition of a strong woman, who has taken charge of her life and become a hero with the intention of helping others, with the scenes of her helpless against sexual assault, makes you think about how rape is a really bad thing and how normal "non-superpowered" women might have an even harder time putting the pieces back together.
I know when most of us read stories about Psylocke or Black Cat or Wonder Woman, we only see the strong, daring women within, but this is a grim reminder that some people are more likely to see them as nothing but sex objects.
It's a shame more writers haven't the guts to explore pressing issues like these or to create characters as deep, unique, and multifaceted as Inertia. Industry pundits who are always complaining about the lack of female comic book readers need look no further than Mr. Straczynski and Inertia to see exactly what it's going to take to pull in that all-important demographic: strong, foul-mouthed, sexy, scantily-dressed lesbians who have daddy issues and recount their sexual assaults in graphic detail. Why can't we have more characters like this?
I know a lot of the men out there won't like it, but that's why they publish Archie.