This month, host Christina Cauterucci, Jules Gill-Peterson, and Bryan Lowder start the show with a Thots & Queries segment in which a listener asks about orgy etiquette. In a completely different party setting, they try to figure out what on earth is going on in the U.S. Congress, where legislators are debating marriage equality in the form of the Respect for Marriage Act. Then Northwestern University professor and journalist Steven Thrasher joins them to discuss his new book The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide. Finally, they add some new items to the gay agenda.

Items discussed in the show:
Taylor Blake and her emu friend Emmanuel
Beyoncé’s Renaissance
A shocking tweet from the official Log Cabin Republicans account
The June 29 episode of Outward in which Mark Joseph Stern considered how the Dobbs decision might affect LGBTQ rights
“Why Is There More Republican Support for Gay Marriage Than for Abortion Rights?” by Moira Donegan, in the Nation
The Viral Underclass,, by Steven Thrasher
Let the Record Show, by Sarah Schulman
“An Uprising Comes From the Viral Underclass,” by Steven Thrasher in Slate, June 12, 2020
 
Gay Agenda
Jules: X, by Davey Davis
Bryan: The Sandman, on Netflix
Christina: “We Failed,” by Eric Neugeboren, in the Texas Tribune
 
This podcast was produced by June Thomas.
Please send feedback, topic ideas, and advice questions to outwardpodcast@slate.com.
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