Friday, November 28, 2008

Marc Christian

Does anybody remember Marc Christian? He was at one time, Rock Hudson's boyfriend/POSSLQ/Significant Other (take your pick.) After Rock Hudson's death, Christian sued Hudson's estate for Rock exposing him to AIDS without his knowledge/consent, and won a multimillion dollar judgment. (Editorial comment: sounds fair to me. I think exposing someone to AIDS is a *really* rotten thing to do.)

I once saw Mr. Christian give an interview in which he stated that he was done with men. I thought to myself: very good looking young man with millions of dollars, history of gay behavior- somewhere there are a lot of women who'd like to try straightening him out- now, there's a disaster aiting to happen.

Apparently Mr. Christian dodged the AIDS bullet- he's still alive 22 years later. And he's stayed out of the spotlight, except for one small historical footnote. Several years ago, Barbara Streisand produced a biopic of Ronald Reagan. It as not a sympathetic portrayal, to put it VERY mildy. There as one scene in which the screen Reagan, upon hearing of the deah toll from AIDS, says, 'Those who lived in sin, shall die in sin.'

That's when Marc Christian came back for his 16th minute of fame. He announced that when Rock Hudson was gravely ill, President Reagan and Nancy called Hudson to wish him well. Hmmm...that hardly sounds like the act of the homophobic monster Streisand depicted.

That is, unfortunately, an all too common feature of our current political discourse- it's not enough to disagree with someone, demonize them.

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