I guess it all started late last year when “Grey’s Anatomy” actor Isaiah Washington called co-star T.R. Knight a “little faggot” during a scuffle on the set with Patrick Dempsey. It got worse, of course, on Jan. 15, when he denied that the exchange had ever occurred and — once again — used the word “faggot.”
“No, I did not call T.R. a faggot,” Washington told reporters. “Never happened, never happened.”
After heat from just about the entire right-minded country, Washington acknowledged “repeating the word Monday night” and offered an apology — although it clearly reeked of PR spin.
“I apologize to T.R., my colleagues, the fans of the show and especially the lesbian and gay community for using a word that is unacceptable in any context or circumstance. I marred what should have been a perfect night for everyone who works on ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’ I can neither defend nor explain my behavior. I can also no longer deny to myself that there are issues I obviously need to examine within my own soul, and I’ve asked for help.”
It wasn’t without a touch of irony that the next chapter in the current gay hate-fest came on Valentine’s Day — a day that celebrates love. It was, however, nothing short of vitriolic hate that spewed out of former NBA player Tim Hardaway’s mouth during a radio interview about another former NBA player — openly gay John Amaechi.
Tim Hardaway
“Well, you know, I hate gay people,” Hardaway said off-handedly. “I let it be known, I don’t like gay people. I don’t like to be around gay people. Yeah, I’m homophobic. I don’t like it. It shouldn’t be in the world ... or in the United States for that matter. So, yeah, I don’t like it.”
Hardaway was reprimanded and quickly dropped as a spokesperson for the NBA.
In what was probably a last-ditch (and unsuccessful) effort to keep his job, he issued his apology: “I don’t hate gay people,” Hardaway told CBS affiliate WFOR. “I’m a good-hearted person. I interact with people all the time. … I respect people. For me to say ‘hate’ was a bad word, and I didn’t mean to use it.”
Never one to skip a beat, right-wing commentator Ann Coulter kept the anti-gay ball rolling right along at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2.
Speaking to an audience of mostly college-age students, Coulter said, “I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of [at] an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.”
Given some of her previous remarks, Coulter’s anti-gay drivel should come as no surprise. In a column she wrote in August,2006, Coulter suggested that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) is lesbian: “I’d say that’s about even money” on Sen. Clinton “[c]oming out of the closet” in 2008. Previously Coulter attacked former President Bill Clinton in a CNBC interview, saying that he “show[s] some level of latent homosexuality.” Even further back Coulter labeled former Vice President Al Gore a “total fag” in another interview with CNBC.
Seems Coulter’s obsessed with the sexual orientation of the Democratic Party and her sense of humor hasn’t developed beyond the mindset of a straight, college frat boy.
Needless to say — again — most right-minded Americans reacted with shock and dismay at Coulter’s comments about Edwards. But this time it wasn’t just the Democrats who were pissed off — even the Republicans distanced themselves from Coulter’s pathetic mudslinging.
Coulter tried to defend her use of the term as a “schoolyard taunt.”
Ann Coulter
“The word I used has nothing to do with sexual preference … and unless you’re going to announce here on national TV that John Edwards, married father of many children, is gay, it clearly had nothing to do with that.”
That explanation did not satisfy her critics, including three Republican presidential candidates, Rudolph Giuliani of New York, John McCain of Arizona and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.
At press time, eight papers around the country that carried Coulter’s right-wing ravings had made the decision to drop her column.
Another incendiary statement against gays and lesbians rippled across the airwaves March 12 when Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in uniform, speaking with an editorial group at the Chicago Tribune said the following in regards to the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which bans gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military.
“I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts…I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is okay to be immoral in any way.”
“Saying that gays should serve openly in the military, to me, says that we, by policy, would be condoning what I believe is immoral activity.”
As one would expect, once again, a lot of people got really mad and demanded that Pace apologize.
At press time, he had not done so, though he did offer a meek explanation of sorts.
In a statement, Pace said he should have focused more in the interview on the Defense Department policy about gays and “less on my personal moral views.”
Days later, a group of “Jewish and Christian leaders” held a conference at the White House to demand that President George W. Bush support Pace’s statements.
Who these “leaders” are is anybody’s guess but somebody’s always looking for a chance to grab center stage when it comes to fundamentalist performance acts.
Gen. Peter Pace
“Gene. Pace is correct in all he said about homosexual acts and should be applauded not pilloried,” muttered Rev. Rob Schenck, Chairman of the Committee on Church and Society for the Evangelical Church Alliance. “We have urged President Bush to fully support him and look forward to his doing so.”
Dubya would do best by either condemning Pace’s personal prejudices or keeping his mouth shut entirely. After his half-hearted plug for the federal marriage amendment last year in an attempt to appease his evangelical voter base, nothing he could do would surprise me — but I’m betting he sits this one out.
“This is a moral issue and President Bush needs to step up and say so,” blathered Rabbi Yehuda Levin of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Rabbis. “This isn’t a religious matter; it is moral and requires moral straight talk.”
Who is he kidding? A rabbi saying his moral convictions aren’t born out of his religious convictions — who then uses those beliefs as an excuse for bigotry?
“This isn’t about discrimination, it’s about right and wrong,” babbled Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition. “Americans believe in moral order in the military. General Pace needs support, not criticism.”
Don’t you hate it when one individual tries to speak for the entire country?
An interesting study done in mid-March by mediacurves.com proves that Mahoney and company are well off the mark.
According to the report, a majority of Democrats (76 percent) and Independents (59 percent) said they did not agree with Pace’s statements, while a majority of Republicans (66 percent) reported that they agreed with his comments.
When it comes to the question of whether or not gays and lesbians should be able to serve in the military, an overwhelming majority of Democrats (82 percent) indicated that gays and lesbians should have the same right to serve as heterosexuals. Not surprisingly, more than half of Republicans (57 percent) and almost three-quarters of independents (73 percent) feel that way, too.
According to USA Today, 72 million residents in this country are registered Democrats. Another 55 million are registered Republicans and 42 million are registered as Independents.
I think those figures pretty much sum up where most right-minded Americans stand on this issue.
The last chapter in this look at the slew of anti-gay rhetoric that’s been flooding the airwaves of late came across my desk March 14. Of everything that’s been said — this is clearly the most disturbing.
According to an article in Time magazine, the “reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U.S.” recently advised Christians to prenatally engineer potentially gay children to be heterosexual if the possibility were to become available.
“We would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin,” says Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary — one of the world’s largest seminaries and the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention. He goes on to justify his theories on his blog at www.AlbertMohler.com.
“Given the consequences of the Fall and the effects of human sin, we should not be surprised that such a causation or link is found. After all, the human genetic structure, along with every other aspect of creation, shows the pernicious effects of the Fall and of God’s judgment.”
In case you’re a little confused about his reference to “the Fall,” he’s referring to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and saying that their actions may have resulted in punishment from the Christian God by altering human DNA to create gays and lesbians — so it’s okay to genetically alter a gay or lesbian fetus to a heterosexual state.
“The general trend of the research points to at least some biological factors behind sexual attraction, gender identity, and sexual orientation,” Moehler continues. “This does not alter God’s moral verdict on homosexual sin. If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use…”
What is wrong with all these people?
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