Leggings, sash, a pince-nez… Could Mayor McCheese be any gayer?

Are the Golden Arches a gateway to gay sex? Do Happy Meals now come with poppers and lube? These are the questions I ask myself each time I receive a new Google Alert about McDonald’s and its supposed promotion of the gay agenda.

Maybe if I followed the links to more of these articles, I wouldn’t have to wonder. But they mostly come from websites with names like ‘Stop the ACLU’ and have sleazy headlines that blare “McDonald’s Profits Help Fund Naked Homosex-Fest.” (Well, we know the money isn’t going toward clothes…)

While I’m the first to admit that I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed — just a few short years ago, I thought Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were a business arrangement for the ages — I’d recognize the stench of right-wing zealotry anywhere. (Where I grew up, it was a fragrant blend of sweat worked up during illicit rest stop restroom encounters and eau de KFC.)

My amazing powers of prescience tell me these articles are all about one thing: the latest American Family Association boycott of the fast food chain, prompted by a $20,000 donation to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. I’m not opposed to reading crap, having amassed in my formative years an impressive library of Sweet Valley High books, but I can’t bring myself to read anything that takes the AFA seriously.

They’re money-grubbing hatemongers who’d boycott their own mothers for a bit of publicity and the best thing you can do is ignore them. Still, when I skimmed the latest alert to pollute my inbox, I was a little tempted to follow the link and post a comment. The headline, which read “McDonald’s Is Digging In Its Heels In Support of Homosexuality,” was too perfect a set-up. My fingers itched to reply, That McDonald’s wears heels was your first sign they “support homosexuality.”

The urge eventually passed, but I remain mildly curious about the content of the article. Does it define what constitutes support of homosexuality? Is there a “Vote Yes on Homosexuality” pin you can buy somewhere? If you make a donation to homosexuality, do you get a complimentary tote, or is that strictly a PBS thing? I don’t understand these people.