“You can’t change the way you are or who you fell in love with … We support Uncle Poodle and all the other poodles in the world too.”
— TLC reality star Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson in a statement publicized by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation on Oct. 19, Spirit Day, when people were encouraged to wear purple to oppose anti-LGBT bullying. Alana’s gay Uncle Poodle, aka Lee Thompson, gave an in-depth interview to GA Voice in our Oct. 12 issue. (GLAAD.org, Oct. 19)
“Being gay in the South, people don’t like it. Why? You have homophobes who want to beat you and bully you and name-call you … I am wearing purple today to let every youngster and teen know that is OK to be who you are. Don’t let nobody change that.”
Four months ago, 29-year-old Lee Thompson moved back to his hometown of Milledgeville, Ga., where he grew up with his two brothers. After moving around the last few years, most recently living in Birmingham, Ala., Thompson was looking forward to settling back into a familiar environment.
But things are a little different these days.
“I was at the Wal-Mart in Forsyth, getting ready to check out. And this woman kept following me, like it was obvious she was following me. Finally, I turned to her and said, ‘Ma’am, can I help you with something?’ and she said, ‘Can I ask you a question?’ I told her if her question was if I’m Uncle Poodle, yes I was. She said, ‘Can I get my picture with you?’, and she was so excited, she said her husband wasn’t gonna believe it. That’s how it goes now.”
Gay marriage opponents have long used the ridiculous argument that allowing gay marriage opens up the legal system to all kinds of marriages — including polygamous marriages in which one man is married to several women.
Today marks a strange twist in that logic as the lawyer for Kody Brown and his four wives, stars of TLC's polygamy reality series “Sister Wives,” announced that the Browns plans to sue the state of Utah over its bigamy law, which goes beyond criminalizing multiple marriage licenses and actually prohibits married people from purporting to marry another person, or live with another person in a marriage-like way.
Here's how the ALCU sums it up:
Channel surfing at home the other night, I convinced my friends to turn from Nancy Grace's Tot Mom marathon for a brief visit with the families of TLC's "Toddlers and Tiaras."
Truth be told, I love the show, and I've been known to host my own private Netflix marathons of crazy moms and Red-Bulled pageant preschoolers prancing around on stage between temper tantrums.
The other night, though, something special happened when we met Brock Ritter, a spritely 7-year-old boy who, according to his loving mother, had shown interest in pageants since he was two.