Published 15 December 2006

(word count: 750)

Actor Neil Patrick Harris, perhaps best known for the title role in TV's "Doogie Howser, MD" and later as a womanizing bachelor in the CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother," told People magazine's website that he is "quite proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest."

Aside from a few comments like "yawn-inducing" and "anti-climactic," mainstream mediahacks and showbiz buzzhawks took the actor's proclamation pretty much in stride.  Gay outings, it seems, are hardly news anymore.  As TV critic Doug Elfman of the Chicago Sun-Times put it, "do we really care?"

This follows a general journalistic principal: Dog Bites Man is not news; Man Bites Dog is news.  Thus, at least one libertarian keyboard-pounder has deemed it funworthy to imagine the response had the gate swung in the opposite direction:

World-renowned lingerie and handbag designer Ignacio Octavo Ulysses (known to his legion of fans and trademark attorneys simply as Iggy) stunned the global gay community by announcing that he is straight.

"I can no longer live a lie," Iggy announced during his acceptance speech at the International Fashion Designers and Trend-Setters Awards Festival in Cannes where he had just been presented with the coveted Best Design for Prepubescent Girl's Undies in the Politically Correct Biodegradable Natural Fiber Category.  "I just have to be me," added the temperamental personal garments raconteur and gadfly.

"I was about to be outed by my longtime companion anyway," Mr. Ulysses added.  "I just beat him to the punch."

"I will always cherish my Iggy, even if he is a villainous slut-bunny," sniffled longtime companion Lancelot Flaccid while eying an empty punchbowl during a post-festivities interview.  "Some of my best friends are Heterosexuals," he added petulantly.

Shockwaves rippled through the diversity community as well.  A spokesbeing for the Culturally Correct Coalition of Liberal Diversity Snobs, commenting on condition of anonymity, questioned the organization's continued recognition of the now "out of the closet" fashion maven.  "It isn't immediately clear whether Ignacio is still qualified for diversity membership, which he certainly was as a strong gay male.  But now that he has admitted to being an effeminate straight man, well, I can only say at this point that some of my best friends are heterosexuals."

Political fallout has been equally raucous.  In France, Philippe Bustier–Balzac, Deputy Minister of Cream-filled Napoleons and Fruity Tarts, who had long encouraged titillating intimations of sexual escapades with Mr. Ulysses, has now been outed as a liar as a result of Mr. Ulysses being outed as a straightie.  France being France, however, Bustier–Balzac's political worth has only risen like a hot puffy muffin.

It's a different story in the United Socialist States of America.  Persistent rumors, carefully targeted leaks and well-greased anonymous tips all indicate a Democrat Party in disarray.  One Democratic National Committee policycrat was reported to have snorted, "How can that little straightie deliver the gay vote for us if he isn't even gay anymore?"  Meanwhile, DC gossip suggests that members of the powerful Senate Committee on Earmarks, Boondoggles and Porkbarrels have threatened to defund the Ulysses-backed Museum of Erotic Brassieres and Garter Belts, to have been built in a so-called "blighted" San Francisco neighborhood, the last non-gay district in the city, seized via eminent domain.

While Republicans have largely dropped all discussion of the issue like a hot crossed bun, hardcore party supporter Brother Samuel 2 Maccabees Leviticus, a fundamentalist Televangelist and sacred music rapper, has claimed credit for "straightening" the formerly gay Iggy through his ongoing $500-per-donation prayer vigils.

Still, one Republican congresscrat has supposedly admitted, in extremely cautious terms, "Some of our best supporters are heterosexuals."

But the worst repercussions may come from the commercial world, where the giant department store chain Lord and Hey Sailor has had a long and highly profitable exclusive arrangement (hetero spokespersons hesitate to call it a "relationship") with the suddenly straight thong-and-pants man.

"The upmarket IGGY brand may have just become uptight," an unnamed corporate purchasing agent admitted.  "Our business plan calls for us to cater to the homo/lesbian/bi/trans/hermaphro/ambivalent/ neo/retro/surgically reassigned customer," the buyer explained.  "With this unexpected image switch, our sales have the potential for going as flat as a frosted strawberry Pop-Tart."

But another unidentified corporatecrat took a more sensitive posture.  "We can't forget that we also have a strong customer base of cross-dressers and female impersonators.  That means some of our best customers are quasi-heterosexuals."