Scout’s Honor’s DC Debut

The last two days have been the eye of the Scout’s Honor publicity hurricane for me — at least until the national air date in a couple of weeks. Tuesday night was Scout’s Honor’s Washington premiere, at the Reel Affirmations gay and lesbian summer pride film fest. A huge crowd packed the grand old Lincoln Theater on U Street, and cheered and laughed and sniffled at all the right places. The also asked a bunch of interesting and interested questions of the Q&A panel following, which included Steve Cozza, Dave Rice, Tom Shepard, and myself.

Afterwards, a friend of Tom’s threw a fun little reception at his nearby condo. I met one of the host’s friends, Chris Marquis, who’s a reporter for the New York Times. It turns out we’re the same age and both went to Cal Berkeley at the same time, both in English-related departments. We really hit it off, and he’s pretty cute, too, so I’m hoping he uses the phone or e-mail address I gave him. We’ll see.

Henry Thaggert and Raymond Lockett both came to the Reel Affirmations screenings. But neither Pasquale nor Beauyn made it to that screening, nor the Library of Congress screening last night. (Although it was aimed primarily at congresspeople and their staffs, it was open to the public.) Which was kind of a disappointment. They’re all close friends, of course, but now I feel like I have a better idea of who my reliable close friends are.

The Congressional screening was pretty great, too. A much smaller crowd in a much smaller theater, of course, but they still packed it with power players. And James Dale flew down just for the event. I had a long chat after the showing with Mark Levine, who is the staff attorney for Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who also put in an appearance, along with screening host Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) and one or two other representatives who I didn’t know.

Levine and I had an interesting discussion about the steps Congress might take (at least theoretically, since any ‘anti-Scout’ bill would be a political nonstarter). We kicked around the idea of proposing to revoke or modify the exclusivity clause of the BSA’s Congressional Charter, which prevents anyone from starting up a “Gay Scouts of America,” as right-wingers are always suggesting. I doubt anything will come of it, but it’s certainly exciting to have the ear of a power player, if only for a moment.