While many of us (myself included) were watching Sam's quantum leap into
Naval College homophobic hell on Wednesday night, yet *another* gay
plotline was being aired at the very same time... this one on ABC's
"Civil Wars".  Such are the joys of videotape (and, "who'da thunk it"
just a couple of years ago)...

[For the uninitiated, "Civil Wars" is a Stephen Bochco (L.A. Law) production,
and applies the same ensemble-cast formula to the New York City divorce-
lawyer motif.  The firm is a two-person partnership, one male and one
female.]

If you must, spoiler warning alert!


In this episode, the male partner is slapped with a malpractice suit by
a bartender in a New York gay bar.  Apparently, our lawyer had represented
this bartender in a palimony suit against his former lover.  The bartender
lost the suit, and he charged our lawyer with negligence because he failed
to call any of the "expert witnesses" (representatives of gay organizations,
gay-positive psychologists, etc.) suggested by the bartender.

This time out, the bartender is represented by a lesbian lawyer, and our
lawyer is represented by his (female) partner.  The lesbian lawyer makes a
point of bringing up her sexuality at almost every opportunity, and sings
the song of oppression and victimization.  She confronts our lawyer
directly about his negative feelings toward gayfolk; when she asks him
directly (paraphrasing), "Have you ever made any jokes or derogatory
remarks about homosexuals?" his partner speaks up and says, "His counsel
is advising him not to answer that question."

The attorney for the firm's insurance company is in on this, and he
strongly advises our lawyer to settle because, if the case goes to trial
and loses, the insurance company will *not* cover the loss.  Our lawyers
agree to this (in essence, betting the firm).  (By the way, the insurance
attorney made a big deal about assigning "risk" to the case... "Actuarilly
speaking, there's a one in ten chance you get a judge who is homosexual...")

Apparently, our lawyer is having second thoughts, because he goes to
visit the bartender where he works (with a couple of gratuitous shots of
men hugging -- including an interracial couple, I believe) and offers him
a settlement of $50,000.  The bartender refuses, using the argument that
he's sick and tired of accepting "handouts" from straights who suddenly
have pangs of conscience.

As our lawyer leaves the bar (I'm sure you saw this coming...), a bunch
of guys drive up in a car, call him "queer", "faggot", and such, and
proceed to beat the daylights out of him.  (The beating stops only when
an unseen female voice shouts, "Now you boys stop that; I'm callin' the
cops!")

Anyhow, the parties meet in the courtroom for a preliminary hearing to
decide whether or not to go to trial.  After some perfunctory arguments
from both sides, the judge intervenes and says that, basically no matter
how the original case would have been presented, he would have ruled
against the bartender, and that the malpractice suit has no merit.

Our lawyer, now "reformed", returns to the bar to express his regrets
to the bartender.  He is still taking a very quietly aggressive stance,
saying that "we can do just fine by ourselves" and ~what happened to you
is what we have to go through every day".  As the story ends, our 
lawyer is still depressed over losing the case, considering whether or
not it really was his own prejudice that lost the case.

Also, in a brilliant counterpoint that didn't hit me until well after
I watched the episode, our lawyer was involved in another proceeding
simultaneously.  This one involved a straight couple where the man was
seeking a divorce because his wife was a phone-sex operator.  During
the deposition, the wife ended up giving a "demonstration" of her work
-- with the other party being the husband's lawyer phoning from the
firm's reception area.  As the conversation moved from attractive women
to "slutty" women to dirty women to spanking -- with the husband's
lawyer overcoming his resistance and getting somewhat hot-and-bothered
-- the stenographer finally packed up her machine and left, claiming that
this was getting far too disgusting for her to continue.

No such value judgments were to be found in the gay plotline.

IMHO, I enjoyed the episode because it was somewhere between the two
extremes we usually get in gay network TV stories -- "woe is us, we're
all dying of AIDS" and "perfect, flawless gayfolk teach homophobic
creep error of his ways, in 48 minutes or less."  The portrayals in
"Civil Wars" were sometimes unflattering, but usually seemed to be
closer to a person I'd meet in the real world (if not a "representative"
or "stereotypical" person).
-- 
Chris Thomas						(415) 694-5614
S4/7 b g+ l y+ z+ n+ o+ x-/+ a++ u v-/+ j++          thomas@acuson.com