What Viruses Can Teach Us About Our Profoundly Unequal World

This month, hosts 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 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.