Previous

Contents

Next

GLAAD's Folly
by Sean Gangol
[email protected]

Special to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past two months, then you probably know about the Phil Robinson and the GLAAD debacle. GLAAD: Gay, Lesbian, Alliance Against Defamation took offense, when Phil Robinson from Duck Dynasty made a few politically incorrect statements about gay people in an issue of GQ. I don't feel like wasting space repeating what Robertson said, so if you want to see what he had to say, then I suggest finding a site that has the full quote. Since GLAAD didn't like what Robinson had to say about gays, they did what they usually do when somebody utters a phrase that they don't like. They bullied A&E with the threat of a boycotting their sponsors. This resulted in Phil Robinson being suspended. Sadly this isn't the first time GLAAD has used these tactics to try and silence those who say things that may offend this almighty and all powerful organization.

Before I put the much deserved and overdue smack down that GLAAD has been begging for since its creation, I want to point out that I have been a longtime supporter of gay rights, since I believe that there is no place for second class citizenship in a free society. I believe that gays have the same natural rights as anybody else and I will stand in opposition to those who would deny them those rights. It was one of the issues that put me at odds with social conservatives.

Now that I got that out of the way, I can finally get down to what really bugs me about GLAAD. The problem with GLAAD and organizations like it is that they are no longer content with the notion of equal rights. Now, they are hell bent on becoming a class of people who are protected from petty insults or anything else deemed offensive by the gay community. They believe that they have the nonexistent right of never being offended. While, I don't have a problem with GLAAD calling somebody on their bigotry and criticizing him for it, I think it is a bit excessive to go out of the way to destroy somebody's life over it. When they do that they become the speech police, one of George Orwell's worst nightmares.

With the possible exception of the Anti-Defamation League, GLAAD is one of the most hypersensitive organizations in existence. They always get their panties in a bunch every time somebody says something that may sound remotely homophobic. Just using the word gay in a completely different way is enough to get this organization to gather their preverbal torches and pitchforks for a preverbal lynching.

A few years ago GLAAD focused the wrath of its anger on the movie "The Dilemma", where Vince Vaughn, who was playing some sort of advertising consultant, told a car company that the problem that people have with hybrids is that they are gay. This enraged GLAAD so much that they were able to get this line removed from the movie's trailer, despite the fact that the Vaughn character made it clear that he wasn't talking about gay people, when he said that he meant gay in the terms of showing up to the prom with your sister. Never mind that the original meaning of the word had nothing to do with homosexuality. Apparently GLAAD believes that they now own the word, gay.

Then we had an incident with Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains fame when he was put into a similar situation as Phil Robertson. When he was asked about his stance on homosexuality by Piers Morgan, his answer led to the "shock and outrage" of GLAAD and its supporters. How anyone could possibly be surprised that a man who has been a fundamentalist Christian since he was seventeen would find homosexuality morally repugnant is beyond me. Though I can't say that I have ever been overly fond of Kirk Cameron, mainly because of the intellectual dishonesty that he has shown on issues such as evolution, I found it absolutely hilarious that GLAAD had to manufacture "shock and outrage." Unfortunately for GLAAD there wasn't any way to attack Cameron, since his life revolves mostly around Christian fundamentalism. The only thing they could do in the end was encourage Cameron's former colleagues to send him a letter to encourage him to be more tolerant towards gays. This reminded me of the scene in "Team America: World Police", where a member of the UN inspection team demands that Kim Jong-Il allow him to inspect the restricted parts of the palace for WMD's. He even uses the words "or else."

"Or else what?" Kim Jong-Il replies.
"Or else we will be very angry with you. We will send a letter telling you how angry we are with you."

Going back to the Phil Robinson fiasco, I can honestly say that I predicted correctly about what was going to happen. After Phil had been suspended, I knew that the rest of Robinson clan was going to back him. Anyone who has seen the show at least once knows that the Robinsons value two things: faith and family. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise to anybody that the Robinsons gave a written declaration that they wouldn't go on without their patriarch. I also had a feeling that A&E was going to back down from their original decision. I don't care how much influence GLAAD has, Duck Dynasty is the most popular show on cable TV and one would have to be a complete idiot to give it up to appease a radical minority. People in the entertainment industry may claim that they hate capitalism, but in the end, the only thing they truly care about is money.

As for GLAAD, I have just four words for them. Grow the hell up. Contrary to popular belief, the biggest obstacle for gay rights isn't Christian fundamentalism, but it's entitled, thin skinned bullies who have to force the acceptance of their lifestyle on everybody. By trying to force people to accept your lifestyle, you are only creating greater resentment among those who are already have their own prejudices against gays. I find it amazing that in many third world countries, especially those ruled by radical Islamic theocracies, gay people have to worry about their very survival, while many gay people here seem so preoccupied with what a man who looks like he could be the fourth member of ZZ Top thinks about their lifestyle. I guess that shows the difference between first world and third world problems for gay people.

Was that worth reading?
Then why not:

This site may receive compensation if a product is purchased
through one of our partner or affiliate referral links. You
already know that, of course, but this is part of the FTC Disclosure
Policy found here. (Warning: this is a 2,359,896-byte 53-page PDF file!)
TLE AFFILIATE