“I didn’t march in the gay parade this year — the gay pride parade this year. My opponent did, and that’s not the example we should be showing our children. And certainly not in our schools. Don’t misquote me as wanting to hurt homosexual people in any way. That would be a dastardly lie. My approach is live and let live. I just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family, and I don’t want them brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option — it isn’t.”The remarks were caught on video.
“There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual.”That remark, which Paladino said was suggested by his "hosts at the synagogue," made its way into media reports about the event after a draft of the speech was circulated by the congregation, without first clearing it with the campaign. Appearing on CBS' "The Early Show" Monday, Paladino said local media owes him an apology for reporting the statement as being part of his speech, even though he cross it out prior to the event.
“Carl Paladino is simply expressing the views that he holds in his heart as a Catholic,” [campaign manager, Michael R. Caputo] said in a telephone interview. “Carl Paladino is not homophobic, and neither is the Catholic Church.”These comments come on the heels of a disturbing series of hate crimes perpetrated against gay men by members of a street gang in the Bronx; and the suicide of Tyler Clementi, previously discussed on the blue.
“The majority of New Yorkers agree with him,” Mr. Caputo added. He said the campaign had done its own polling.
SIEGEL: Well, I haven't heard you answer the question about Photoshopped images of the Obamas dressed up as a pimp and a streetwalker.posted by electroboy at 7:16 AM on October 11, 2010 [2 favorites]
Mr. PALADINO: I apologize to anybody, okay, who may have been offended by my resending of emails. I didn't create them. I resent them.
I just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family[...]So, if his children happen to feel attraction to the wrong gender, he advocates they just shut up about it, get into a loveless marriage and inflict this unhappy situation on their children?
dastardly [adj] : mean and cowardlyIt does strike me that it's a particularly apt description for him.
Stephanopoulos: "Do you believe homosexuality's a choice?"posted by ericb at 9:02 AM on October 11, 2010
Paladino: "I’ve had difficulty with that. My [out] nephew tells me he didn’t have that choice. And I believe it’s a very, very difficult life for a young person. I believe that young people should not necessarily be exposed to that without some really, really mature background first before, so they can learn to deal with it. It is a very difficult thing. And I sensitize with it totally." *
"'My feelings on homosexuality are unequivocal. I have absolutely no problem with it whatsoever. My only reservation is marriage. ... I have a lot of homosexuals working in my organization,' referring to his real estate business." *posted by ericb at 9:07 AM on October 11, 2010 [1 favorite]
Asian Americans represent both extremes of socioeconomic and health indices: while more than a million Asian Americans live at or below the federal poverty level, Asian-American women have the highest life expectancy of any other group. Asian Americans suffer disproportionately from certain types of cancer, tuberculosis, and Hepatitis B. Factors contributing to poor health outcomes for Asian Americans include language and cultural barriers, stigma associated with certain conditions, and lack of health insurance.Very generally speaking, Jewish culture and some Asian cultures strongly encourage personal success and education as a possible path away from the pitfalls of minority status here in America.
/snip/posted by ericb at 2:14 PM on October 11, 2010 [8 favorites]
"In the past month, a 13-year-old Minnesota boy named Seth Walsh, who had been taunted for being gay, died in the hospital days after hanging himself from a tree; a 13-year-old Houston boy named Asher Brown shot himself after repeated homophobic bullying; 18-year-old Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge after his roommate secretly filmed him having sex with another man (though it is not clear that the roommate was specifically homophobic or would have done the same if Clementi were with a woman); and a 15-year-old Indiana boy named Billy Lucas hanged himself in his barn after being tormented by classmates.
After Lucas' death, advice columnist Dan Savage launched an online campaign entitled 'It gets better.' Countless gay men and women have now posted videos on YouTube, telling — and demonstrating — that life does get better for gay teens.
More than a decade has passed since my brother used that notorious homophobic slur [faggot]. I am now 22, and, as it happens, I am gay. Further, I, personally, was depressed throughout much of my adolescence. Although anti-gay bullying was never a problem for me as a student at Clayton High School, being in the closet hardly helped my mental well-being. I was hospitalized for depression the summer after my sophomore year in college and tried to overdose on pills later that fall.
My father is a physics professor at Washington University. Years ago, he wrote an article on his personal website in which he justified homophobia as a 'moral judgment' about a person's actions. Even if one does not accept Judeo-Christian morality, he wrote, gays should be shunned because they are physically and morally responsible for the AIDS epidemic. Any person 'cursed with unnatural sexual desires' should suppress those desires. Further, even if gays are thoroughly safe and monogamous, they are still morally culpable for the promiscuity that spread AIDS in the past, just as people who join the Ku Klux Klan without physically engaging in violence still share the responsibility for past Klan actions. Though one should 'not engage in violence against homosexuals,' my father argued, one should 'stay away from them.' The last line of the essay is as follows: 'I am a homophobe, and proud.'
It is harder to stay away from homosexuals, I would imagine, when your son is one. When I told my dad I was gay, his immediate response was, 'No, you're not.' (My mom, by the way, was and is more supportive.) When my insistence finally overrode his denials, he echoed his online essay that I should deny who I am rather than to engage in an act so abhorrent as to love another man."
/snip/
"Everything - every single thing - that Paladino said about the homosexual lifestyle yesterday was dead on the money. What he said is so true and so evident and so obvious that the real controversy here is that there is any controversy at all.posted by ericb at 2:17 PM on October 11, 2010 [2 favorites]
The fact that homosexual activists will now bare their fangs, veritably dripping saliva as they go for Paladino’s carotid artery, and will do so with the full-throated blessing of the out-of-the-mainstream media, only illustrates the enormously dangerous clout these purveyors of perversity have been given in our culture.
... There frankly is no other kind of homosexual than the dysfunctional kind. Homosexuals are dysfunctional by the very nature of the aberrant sexual conduct in which they engage. As the Roman Catholic Church correctly says, homosexual behavior is 'intrinsically disordered.'"
The Week and Tommy Christopher do the hard and amusing work of figuring out how and when the term 'teabag' first surfaced in our political parlance and how and when it became an insult. (One activist I talked to yesterday compared it to the 'n-word.')Previous AskMe: Origins of the term "teabag party" and/or "teabaggers"?
The answer to the first question really is indisputable -- the word was first used by the tea party movement itself. In some cases it was by people who did not know that 'teabag' is also a sexual term. In other cases, protesters knew that the term was sexual and hurled it at the Democrats. Here, for example, is a photo I took ['TEA BAG the LIBERAL DEMS BEFORE THEY TEABAG YOU!!'] in February 2009.
It was clear to me at the time that the protester was making a sexual pun. How else does this make sense? The Week helpfully remembers the next link in the chain, the March 2009 campaign by Americans for Prosperity to send tea bags to members of Congress. That, by every indication, was guileless, as was the decision by Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) to dangle tea bags on Fox News.
The turning point, as The Week points out, came when MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and CNN's Anderson Cooper started making 'teabag' jokes. And that was the start of tea partyers viewing the term as a snooty slur by coastal elitists."
"Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers killed themselves. The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed thereselves because of their sin. REALLY PEOPLE."After being challenged by a commenter, this was Mr. McCance’s reply:
"No because being a fag doesn't give you the right to ruin the rest of our lives. If you get easily offended by being called a fag then dont tell anyone you are a fag. Keep that shit to yourself. I dont care how people decide to live their lives. They dont bother me if they keep it to thereselves. It pisses me off though that we make a special purple fag day for them. I like that fags cant procreate. I also enjoy the fact that they often give each other aids and die. If you arent against it, you might as well be for it."Facebook page: Fire Clint McCance.
"I would disown my kids they were gay. They will not be welcome at my home or in my vicinity. I will absolutely run them off. Of course my kids will know better. My kids will have solid christian beliefs. See it infects everyone."
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And forget about all the gays who want to do just that! We're never going to let them!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:49 AM on October 11, 2010 [33 favorites]