Super fun Wash Post Stylejet setter Jason Horowitz has a story about a gay e-mail list called the “Pink Mafia” today. At first I did not know what to make of it, because it contains very little of the sort of actual information you would normally expect a story about an e-mail list such as “how many names are on it” and “what do some of the e-mails, like, ‘say'” and maybe also “hey, what is up with all the gays living in the fashion project capital of the world anyway.”

But then it hit me: like the “Telephone” video, the story obviously has a hidden message!

The story is really about how being gay in D.C. is sort of like being gay in the military except that instead of sexual preference, the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” applies to “political convictions” such as, “butt sex aside what do we want our military to be doing?” and that sort of thing. This is problematic, because since time immemorial gays have been the only people in Washington who actually hang out with Republicans. Without them, nothing gets done. But ever since the threat of Soviets lurking around town snapping photos whenever a closeted power player donned assless chaps or a teal belt or whatever disappeared with the end of the Cold War, our once rich federal reserve of interlocking sexual secrets has disastrously eroded in value, and American “democracy” has suffered for it. Sure, now Americans are even willing to elect openly gay congressmen these days—as long as they are richer than Elton John.

So in comes the oh-so-cleverly named “Pink Hill Mafia”, a listserv designed to restore a productive sense of shame to gay D.C. by locking the LGBT community in a keiretsu of potential blackmail material—a flirty messages intended for that Heritage hottie from happy hour at Nellie’s but accidentally shared with the class, damning photos of that Homocon afterparty where some of the group’s more “pinko” mafiosos did body shots off Ana Coulter, grammatically unfortunate martini-addled blackberry outbursts about figure skating, etc. etc.—and solemnly swearing all members to promise secrecy from the straights forever and ever, even if the sensitive communication in question consists almost entirely of sublet listings and Redskins commentary. But whatever, I’m onto you! So there!

Graphic courtesy the David Icke site for Illuminati symbolism and the crackpots who follow it.