We're still divine, darling.

Friday, two weeks before the election, I was in the Atlanta airport boarding a flight to Salt Lake City to perform at the PFLAG National Conference. Hint: The Cheneys were not scheduled to appear. In fact, on a scale of 1 to PFLAG, the Cheneys are, to quote the Vice Cusser, "Go [expletive deleted] yourself."

I was sporting my JOHN KERRY: A STRONGER AMERICA button even though it had been deconstructed by the Swift Boat Type-Font Designers for Truth as clearly weak on defense. The plane was being boarded by zones--and I was beginning to think they were putting Kerry supporters in the ozone--when a couple came up to me, eyed my button, and without a "Hello, how are you?" intoned, "A vote for John Kerry will hasten the Second Coming."

For a moment I thought they were dissing the new boarding system--first class, second coming, etcetera. I said, "Excuse me?" They smiled and repeated their mantra slower and louder, and finally I heard them. In a moment I now believe was divinely inspired, I smiled and replied slowly and loudly, "Does that mean you will be leaving soon?"

Supposedly, 4 million Christian fundamentalists pulled the lever for W (stands for "war"). In those damnable exit polls they whined that liberals had made them feel guilty about their faith. They were not values voters but victim voters.

We all have our belief systems. I believe there was voter fraud. I also believe that all those anti-gay-marriage initiatives were used to get out the vote. We were so used: We were the wedgie, the butt-thong between the cheek of church and the cheek of state. That's the bad news.

That a 35-year-old gay identity movement can threaten a 2005-year-old Christian identity movement is, I believe, the good news.

Besides the obvious protest strategies of not paying taxes, refusing to sit on juries or serve in the military, caterwauling at family weddings, suing to get government-funded churches onto the tax rolls, snapping down our yoga mats and davening for democracy, or just starting impeachment proceedings on any number of grounds, I've got an idea. No, I'm not moving out of the country. I already live in the tiny island nation of New York City. Nor am I going on some four-year gay cruise setting sail down the Potomac on January 19, 2005.

Since we are in the midst of a religious war tricked out as a cultural war, I want to do a religious reality show called The Spirit Is Willing, a weekly show on religion and sexuality. The GLBT community is a deeply spiritual community. After all, it takes quite a leap of faith to come out. Faith in ourselves, faith in others, in individual freedom, in divine justice. The set would have the familiar Christian broadcast look--gray industrial-carpeted stairs, large potted pahns, and Lucite pulpits. But the message would be completely different. Topics would include "Gay Is Go-d," "Ore Is Homo," and the Golden Lame Rule.

We'd draw front our rich tradition of gay spiritual leaders, sing those old-time gay sph-ituals, feature a religion of the week--Islam, Buddhism, Wicca, Catholicism--and its position on gays. The show would have weekly features: a panel going soul to soul to counter antigay textual teachings; five minutes of world religion news--The Pope Watch; You Say Moola, I Say Mullah; The Jism Schism. Each week long lines of people would come forward to witness and be welcomed and blessed as they come out--a little bop on the forehead to heal them from heterosexuality, and they would fall backward in the welcoming arms of other gay people. Our baptismal font will feature trendy Two Bunch Palms soaking salts.

I have pitched this idea to both Logo and Here. I dare them or any other of the triune networks to produce it. Forget the Second Coming; we need a Second Coming-out.