With this edition of Media Circus, we launch a periodic feature we’re calling “Crackpot Alley,” a roster of the most inane, dangerous, stupid, and appalling news items that cross our desk. We swear we are not making this stuff up. Unfortunately, we don’t have to.
Night of the Fucking Dead: “Anti-gay activist Bryan Fischer has claimed that discrimination against gay people isn’t a problem, because we also discriminate against necrophiliacs,” Europe’s Pink News reports. “The American Family Association president wrote: ‘Homosexual conduct is sexually immoral. We discriminate against immoral sexual conduct all the time,’ linking to a story about a man arrested having sex with a corpse.”
For the record, I see nothing wrong with necrophilia, as long as the cadaver is over 18 and enters into the relationship with full consent.
Media Circus
The Bible Tells Me So: From On Top magazine: “Independent Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate and anti-gay activist Scott Lively argues that the world must stop the ‘gay agenda’ or face ‘chaos.’ ‘With the violent Stonewall Riot of June 28, 1969 (celebrated annually today as “Gay Pride Day”), the movement adopted a radical Marxist goal and agenda heavily influenced by Herbert Marcuse of the Frankfort [sic] School of “Cultural Marxists.” In conclusion, the “gay” agenda is to eliminate the existing Judeo-Christian model of civilization, grounded in marriage-based procreative sexuality, to make way for an irrational and impossible Cultural Marxist model which imagines family-less unlimited “sexual freedom” (anarchy), while somehow preserving orderliness in every other aspect of human society. It reflects an insane and Satanic delusion which breeds chaos, and can only be stopped by unceasing reaffirmation of Biblical values and the natural family by the rest of us.’”
We presume that by “Biblical values and the natural family” Lively is referring to such commonly followed guidelines as Deuteronomy 25:5-10: “When brothers reside together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her, taking her in marriage and performing the duty of a husband’s brother to her, and the firstborn whom she bears shall succeed to the name of the deceased brother, so that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. But if the man has no desire to marry his brother’s widow, then his brother’s widow shall go up to the elders at the gate and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to perpetuate his brother’s name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’ Then the elders of his town shall summon him and speak to him. If he persists, saying, ‘I have no desire to marry her,’ then his brother’s wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, pull his sandal from his foot, spit in his face, and declare, ‘This is what is done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’ Throughout Israel his family will be known as ‘the house of him whose sandal was pulled off.’” Or not.
(Autobiographical addendum: After the death of my grandfather’s older brother, his widow — my grandfather’s sister-in-law — actually showed up at Grandpa’s house, which he shared with my grandmother, my father, and my aunts, and attempted to play out this bizarre regulation. Not knowing what he was supposed to do with Grandma, my grandfather sent her away. She did not spit in his face or yank off his sandals.)
Desdemona Desdemented: Also from Pink News comes this gem: “An opera singer is under fire for an anti-gay rant in which she referred to gay people as ‘fecal masses’ and welcomed violent attacks against a pride parade. Tamar Iveri, who is Georgia-born but currently a member of Opera Australia, is due to star in the company’s upcoming production of Othello.” “Fecal masses?” I call bullshit.
Say what? And from the Hollywood Reporter comes this magnificently odious item about Gary Oldman: “‘The Dark Knight Rises’ actor also defended [Alec] Baldwin’s use of derogatory and homophobic terms. ‘Alec calling someone an F-A-G in the street while he’s pissed off coming out of his building because they won’t leave him alone. I don’t blame him. So they persecute.’ Oldman later singles out satirical news programs like ‘The Daily Show With Jon Stewart’ and ‘Real Time With Bill Maher.’ ‘Well, if I called Nancy Pelosi a cunt — and I’ll go one better, a fucking useless cunt — I can’t really say that,’ he begins. ‘But Bill Maher and Jon Stewart can, and nobody’s going to stop them from working because of it.’
“Oldman continues: ‘Bill Maher could call someone a fag and get away with it. He said to Seth MacFarlane this year, “I thought you were going to do the Oscars again. Instead they got a lesbian.” He can say something like that. Is that more or less offensive than Alec Baldwin saying to someone in the street, “You fag”? I don’t get it.’”
You’re right, you moron. You really don’t get it. Let’s leave it at that.
