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Colorado apparently flashed across the national agenda last week, because a friend called me from out of state.
Ed, I heard something on the radio about a big rally
in Boulder this weekend. But there was a lot of static;
it's tornado season out here. So can you fill me
in?
Be glad to,
I assured him. The rally was
called Promise Keepers, and it attracted 52,000
men.
Amazing. Just what kinds of promises were they
supposed to be keeping?
Don't hold me to this,
I cautioned, but I
gather that the rally organizers believe that society is
breaking down because men will say things that they don't
really mean. But you can trust the word of a real man who's
a Promise Keeper.
So you might say you're going to spend more time with
the family,
he said, and you'd actually do something
with them on a Saturday afternoon instead of drinking beer
and watching a football game with your buddies.
That sounded almost reasonable, but then I remembered.
No, that can't be what they have in mind. If men didn't
sit around watching football games on Saturday afternoons,
then they wouldn't have a place to hold the Promise Keepers
rally. They wouldn't even have a prominent leader to
promote the Promise Keepers.
What do you mean?
my friend asked.
They held Promise Keepers at Folsom Field, the CU
football stadium, and the outfit's main mover is Bill
McCartney, the CU football coach,
I explained.
That's really weird,
my friend said. Isn't
that the same Bill McCartney who said homosexuality ranked
right up there in Leviticus with pork and shellfish as an
'abomination of the Lord'?
Same guy, as far as I know,
I answered.
Well, from what I could make out through the static,
they wouldn't even let women into their rally. And inside,
the men were all hugging and crying and bonding with each
other. It sounded like some kind of pagan Iron John thing,
or maybe a gay pride celebration, and now you tell me Bill
McCartney the fundamentalist was in charge. Now I don't
know what to think.
Obviously, my friend didn't get it, so I tried to explain. But he cut me off.
I understand perfectly. To be a good Promise Keeper,
you maintain your real relationships with men. You have sex
with women, though. You don't talk to them, do things with
them, laugh with them -- but you do have sex with them.
That's all women are good for when you're a Promise Keeper.
How utterly primitive and chauvinist, and I always thought
of Colorado as a rather progressive place.
Stung, I started to defend our state's honor by citing how many peaks we have over 14,000 feet. But to no avail.
This McCartney fellow is the highest-paid employee on
your state payroll,
my friend announced. Colorado
has a governor and a supreme court, and the football coach
gets the biggest paycheck? CU has distinguished scholars,
even a Nobel laureate, and the football coach gets more
than they do? What are you, Nebraska?
I hung up on him. I really wanted to protect Colorado's reputation, but some challenges are beyond my talents.
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