Wow
My column this week was on Oklahoma Rep Sally Kern, a Grand Old Party basher straight out of the fire 'n' brimstone cauldron. She was caught out delivering a speech on the evils of homosexuality to what she assumed was a small, captive audience, but which instead got picked up and
earned a star in the YouTube universe. You can
read more about her speech here (including the speech itself, if you can stomach it), but choice cuts include:
The homosexual agenda is destroying this nation...
Studies show, that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades. So it's the death knell of this country.
They're going after our young children, as young as two years of age, to try to teach them that the homosexual lifestyle is the acceptable lifestyle.
I honestly think it's the biggest threat even, that our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat.
Pretty charming stuff, to be sure. The reason I've highlighted the last quote is because it is this particularly deranged raving which has
inspired this remarkable rebuttal from an 18yo - straight - Oklahoman man whose mother died in the
1995 Oklahoma City bombing. I almost got a little teary reading this, and as people who know me will tell you, I'm not a teary sort of person - unless
ET and/or Mahler are involved.
Tucker's letter demands a reading in its entirety, but here are some of the more powerful, gut-wrenching insights from this young man:
On April 19, 1995 in Oklahoma City, a terrorist detonated a bomb that killed my mother and 167 others. Nineteen children died that day. Had I not had the chicken pox that day, the body count would've likely have included one more. Over 800 other Oklahomans were injured that day and many of those still suffer through their permanent wounds.
That terrorist was neither a homosexual nor was he involved in Islam. He was an extremist Christian forcing his views through a body count. He held his beliefs and made those who didn't live up to them pay with their lives.
As you were not a resident of Oklahoma on that day, it could be explained why you so carelessly chose words saying that the homosexual agenda is worse than terrorism. I can most certainly tell you through my own experience that is not true. I am sure there are many people in your voting district that laid a loved one to death after the terrorist attack on Oklahoma City. I kind of doubt you'll find one of them that will agree with you...
As someone left motherless and victimized by terrorists, I say to you very clearly you are absolutely wrong. You represent a district in Oklahoma City and you very coldly express a lack of love, sympathy or understanding for what they've been through. Can I ask if you might have chosen wiser words were you a real Oklahoman that was here to share the suffering with Oklahoma City? Might your heart be a bit less cold had you been around to see the small bodies of children being pulled out of rubble and carried away by weeping firemen?...
The old saying is sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you. Well, your words hurt me. Your words disrespected the memory of my mom. Your words can cause others to pick up sticks and stones and hurt others.
Quite astonishing. Something tells me, however, that even Tucker can't teach Sally Kern the error of her ways. I think she's just a *tad* too far gone. You know, from reality.
(For a lighter pwning of Kern,
check out Ellen as well.)
Labels: rancid religious right, Republican Party, Sally Kern, US
So close, but no cigar
On the face of it, it would appear two right-wing radio ratbags, Steve Price and Neil Mitchell, are suddenly coming to the defence of the humble homo against the insanity that is the
Westboro 'God Hates Fags' Baptist Church.
Listen to Price interviewing Shirley Phelps-Roper
here, and then jumping on his soapbox
here. If you can stomach any more, listen to Mitchell's interview with the same subject
here.
Steve
'do the kiddies really need to see the fairies?' Price doesn't exactly have a proud history championing all things queer, and neither does Neil
'OK to be straight, too' Mitchell. But I guess like Zemanek, Jonesy and Lawsie, conservative gay men probably make up a not insignificant portion of their audience, so they have to tread a bit more carefully here compared to their usual Muslim, union and/or single-mother bashing.
So both have stuck the boot into Roper in their interviews, with Price claiming such people are part of the reason why the membership numbers for organised religion are down, and Mitchell dismissing them simply as 'absolute nutcases'. In fact, listening to Mitchell he sounds genuinely astounded, as though he really had no idea just what Westboro is all about. Maybe he didn't, in which case hopefully he's learning something, which is never a bad thing.
The problem, however, is that it appears to have taken the death of a heterosexual actor, Heath Ledger, to spur them into action against the church and its funeral-picketing ways. Price in fact goes to great lengths during his interview/editorial to stress that Ledger was only ever
an actor playing gay, as though by implication it would only be acceptable for Westboro to picket the
actual fags at their funeral,
as they did with Matthew Shepard and have done with dozens of other men and women over the years. I don't remember any indignation or outrage coming from the airwaves back in 1998 on this subject.
Admittedly, Price does manage to claim that 'even if (Ledger) was a raving gay (!), this church and its timing is completely out of touch', which is probably the closest to queer tolerance we can ever hope to expect from a shock-jock. But one wonders why Price and Mitchell even allowed Roper airspace to begin with, if they only ever planned to shoot her down. A cynic might think this was a ratings grab to get the crazy, controversial woman on radio to espouse her maniacal views, before pwning her before a captive audience.
One also wonders why it's taken the untimely death of a beloved, heterosexual local son to get the shock-jocks onto their soapbox about this church (and anti-queer 'Christian' extremism generally). Would they have done so if it had been, say, Rupert Everett or Sir Ian McKellen who had recently passed and whose funeral Westboro had announced they planned to picket? And why is it so important to both these men to stress that Ledger was only ever an actor playing a gay role? Surely the issue at hand is the offensive tactics of a bunch of religious whack-jobs, regardless of whether they're combatting 'fags' or 'fag-enablers', who in their dark minds are equal sinners anyway?
Will Price and Mitchell now get the Fred Niles and George Pells and Peter Jensens onto their shows, who I don't imagine (officially) condone Westboro's tactics, and suggest to them that it is perhaps their attitudes and actions that lay the ground for the Fred Phelps seeds to germinate - that Phelps is merely an extreme, but logical, extension of the sort of anti-queer propaganda espoused by relatively more 'moderate' figures?
Broadly, if it takes the death of Heath Ledger to bring awareness and condemnation of Westboro by shock-jocks, and consequently their thousands of listeners, then there is a positive to his tragic death. It just says a lot about the mainstream media that this is the case - not much of it good.
Labels: Heath Ledger, rancid religious right, shock-jocks, Westboro Baptist Chruch
10 reasons why I'm preferencing Labor at this election
The number one cliche best remembered for the 2007 Australian Federal Election will surely be 'me-too'. Kevin Rudd's strongest critics argue he shouldn't win because he's only ever parroting government policy - therefore, why not vote for the genuine article? In fact, I'll bet dollars for donuts this will be the line in the Oz's Vote Howard editorial on Saturday morning, 24 November.
(PS: My challenge still stands, that
I will shave my head if the Oz or any Murdoch rag gives a Vote Rudd editorial on the day, even though they're still hilariously claiming they 'haven't made up their mind yet'.)
There's no doubt Rudd has gone for a safer, small target election campaign than his predecessor - after all, it makes little sense to present a vastly different alternative to someone who is undeniably a popular PM, even after 11 long years. And maybe the policies between Labor and Liberal are so closely mirrored because Rudd is in fact just another Howard - a ruthlessly ambitious, socially conservative populist with few genuine friends in the party - and apart from industrial relations, Labor is essentially a right-wing, as opposed to a far right-wing party.
But for me, there are 10 issues where I see clear delineation between Labor and Liberal, and based on these I will be preferencing the former ahead of the latter*. I will order them from 10 to 1, Bert Newton style, over the next week and a bit.
10. The Rancid Religious Right There is no doubt the RRR has a friend in John Howard. Both the rise of Fundies First and failure of Exclusive Brethren to be shut down can both be atrributed to him and his courting of 'Christian' extremists rather than condemning them.
I'm by no means anti-religion or anti-Christian - I know there are many millions of good folk doing great work across the world all in the name of Christ, Budda, Allah, whoever. And good luck to them. But I do believe in secular nations and constitutional separation of church and state, and I don't believe biblical passages have any place in the legislature. After all, if they did my partner and I would probably be dead by now - so consider my position self-preserving, if you wish.
This is why I find Fundies First particularly threatening - they're smart enough to conceal their Bible-thumping agenda behind a fallacy of 'secular family values'. They've noted from Fred Nile's Christian Democrats that an overtly Christian-based political party will only garner so many votes, so they need to market differently to lure more innocent prey into their trap.
Labor made their mistake arranging a Senate preference deal that got Steve Fielding a job, but they appear to have learnt their lesson, judging by this year's deal in which
the Greens are rightly preferenced ahead of FF in all states. The Libs, however, continue to spoon with FF, meet with and receive funding from the EB (which Rudd did rightly identify as an 'extremist cult', so there's a clear point of difference) while hypocritically gaining mileage condemning the 'troublesome' Islamic element.
I know Rudd feels the JC love big-time too, but I believe a key point of difference is that not as many of his senior ministers/allies will be thumpers as Howard's (Abbott, Andrews, Heffernan etc). Plus
Rudd has previously outlined his belief in church/state separation, so I'm prepared to give him a shot that as PM he will practice what he preaches, and keep his personal religious beliefs just that - personal.
Bear in mind too, that Godfather David Clarke's chief flying monkey, Alex Hawke, is about to begin his no doubt long and illustrious career with the federal Liberal Party - and
we know how dangerous both these men are.
9. Tony Abbott, Alexander Downer, Christopher Pyne, Kevin Andrews, Nick Minchin and Eric Abetz will not be ministers under a Labor government. 'Nuff said.
Coming up next: 8 and 7! Don't miss it.
(*Quite honestly, I haven't yet decided who's getting my No 1 vote. There are 11 candidates in Wentworth and I know my No 1 won't go to the Fundies First, CEC, Christian Democrats, Labor or Liberal candidates, but that still leaves me with 6 to order.)Labels: 2007 federal election, Fundies First, Labor, Liberal Party, rancid religious right
