When restaurateur Hugh Neumann rebukes Oliver Nicholas’s very public proposal to his boyfriend during a Valentine’s Day dinner, the diverted Cupid’s arrow strikes Hugh not in the heart, but in the ass.<br><br>After a media storm of commentary, ironically pro and con, gains national steam, what Hugh begins to refer to as his personal “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” begins to affect home life with his partner, Dominick Brodie.<br><br>Was Hugh’s overreaction pandering to his largely heterosexual clientele? Or did the incident trigger his own panic about same-sex marriage? Will the public scrutiny threaten his decade-long commitment to Dom?

Bended Knee

Someone told Dom a Boycott Platte! Facebook page had amassed seven hundred likes within twenty-four hours of its hasty establishment. Further, the owner of it encouraged followers that “all this Platte nonsense” warranted a more proactive approach: Ask those you regularly patronize what their business and service stance is on acknowledging gay marriage. For example, the lesbian should ask of the dry cleaner “Will you starch my shirt tux?” Transpeople should demand a garter fitting in the women’s dressing room at Macy’s. And the local bakery, by God, should willingly put shirtless Tom of Finland figurines atop your wedding cake. Oh: and could the rosettes look like nipples after some rough play?


I should have predicted there would be people with signs. My people can take up inflammatory callouts as readily as the Fred Phelps folks; we just use calligraphy.


Chapter 6