Why the office of U.S. Patent and Trademark needs an Office of Civil Rights is not readily understood. Why that office has a Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transsexual subcommittee is even less understandable. Even more peculiar is why they have a need to sponsor the First Annual Gay Awareness Month Celebration. And all along we thought they worked on patents and trademarks. How silly of us.
The Catholic League could care less about any of this nonsense. But our attention was drawn to the calendar that this office issued announcing the event: it listed, among many other notable persons, St. Paul as a gay man. We called and asked one question: please fax us the evidence.
The initial response was nervousness and an admission that there was no one in the office who could answer that question. When no one got back to us, we pressed again. And again and again. Finally, a queasy PR man called to say that it was reported on the internet that St. Paul was gay and that references of this sort had been made in several books. This was quickly followed by a statement that he recognized that the internet was not necessarily a reliable source. Furthermore, he admitted that he didn’t know the names of any of the books that he cited as proof.
We have a happy ending. St. Paul has already been deleted from the internet listing that advertises this momentous event. And he’ll never again appear in print on the flyers.
Now perhaps they can get back to patents and trademarks. After, of course, they make everyone in the workplace aware that gays exist.
