When Video Games and Gay Rights Collide

From The Consumerist:

Xbox Live has banned the account name theGAYERgamer, as shown in the image. When called for an explanation, the user was told the name offended "the greater Xbox community." While I'm well aware of the frequency of homophobic epitaphs spewed via Xbox Live voice chat on a regular basis, I did not know that Microsoft was officially endorsing that sort of bigotry.

Looks like I'll be getting a Playstation 3 soon after all.

I'm Homophobic Because I Was Born Too Late To Be Racist

J. Matt Barber has dropped a steaming pile of horseshit on Renew America, and it fucking reeks.

Yet again, more preaching to the choir, trying to rationalize prejudice. It's every American's right to be a raging asshole, to paraphrase Barber, and the gay agenda is to infringe on that right.

It's not only the same horseshit about the gay agenda we've been hearing from these ignorant pricks for years. It's the same old horseshit bigots have been rolling out for decades... centuries even.

So let's compare some of Barber's statements with statements that were once used to decry interracial marriage, culled by Eric Zorn for an article in the May 19, 1996 issue of the Chicago Tribune.

Most people are repulsed by the mechanics of homosexual conduct, but everyone is for "civil rights."
-Barber on homosexuality

This type of legal marriage must be forbidden, said the Republican senator from Wisconsin, “simply because natural instinct revolts at it as wrong.”
-on interracial marriage

And so words like "homophobe" and "heterosexism" were pulled from thin air, not because they had substance, but because they were effective jamming tools. Anyone who holds traditional values relative to human sexuality suddenly became a "homophobe," a "hatemonger," a "bigot."
-Barber on homosexuality

"I believe that the tendency to classify all persons who oppose interracial marriage as ‘prejudiced’ is in itself a prejudice,” claimed a noted psychologist.
-on interracial marriage

This should send a chill down the spine of any parent. It would legally allow pedophiles, and homosexuals who were so inclined, to access your children and teens for their own predatory sexual gratification — so long as those children "consented" to having sex.
-Barber on homosexuality

"The next step will be (the demand for) a law allowing them, without restraint, to … have free and unrestrained social intercourse with your unmarried sons and daughters,” warned a Kentucky congressman. “It is bound to come to that. There is no disguising the fact. And the sooner the alarm is given and the people take heed, the better it will be for our civilization."
-on interracial marriage

You can always rationalize hate. It's not even hard, especially when you have the work of generations of bigots to leech from. But it's just more of the same. Ignorant, hateful people huddling in a circle and desperately trying to convince themselves that this time they have it right. This time prejudice is the right answer. This time the oppressed minority really is a threat to the empowered majority. This time they don't have to change.

J. Matt Barber is a bigot. He can waste as much bandwidth as he wants trying to blame gay people for his bigotry, but when it's all over, it's still his fault.

So... Ron Paul?

Ron Paul is being torn into over newsletters carrying his name that included some absolutely disgusting racist and heterosexist content. You probably already know this, because the mainstream media has given it more attention than any other aspect of his campaign.

Is it fair? That's a damn good question. Obviously the media is all over this thing. Paul supporters like Weird at Slacker Nation are obviously unfazed. The impact this is going to have is still unclear. But is it fair? I almost feel bad for saying it, but yes. It's fair.

I can not tolerate racism or heterosexism. I have dropped longstanding friendships over single instances of overt, unapologetic heterosexism. I have cut ties with members of my family over racism. I'm serious about this. So if there were a newsletter carrying my name in 72 point font across the top, and it had a pattern of obscene racism and heterosexism, I would a) know about it. b) put an immediate stop to it. and c) apologize profusely.

Ron Paul, by his own admission, did none of these things. If a) and b) fell through the cracks, the only thing left is c). But if you watch his reaction, he's not apologetic. Hell, he's barely willing to repudiate the articles without being prompted by someone else.

It is unfair that Ron Paul's campaign has been ignored by the media. Absolutely. But it is not unfair that this particular angle is being covered. The media should be digging into the background of candidates and informing us of this sort of thing. Hell, if they'd done their job in 2000 and given this kind of attention to anything in G.W.'s past, maybe we'd be in better shape today. (Anything. Anything at all.)

Just because the media hasn't fairly covered him up to this point does not mean that Ron Paul should be excused from this particular coverage.