Bam Bam Barber: Obama would be 'the first gay president'

um, by that logic...

Does that make Bush the first Christianist pResident?

Steve

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by: Stevious @ Sun Oct 26, 2008 at 15:22:55 PM CDT

Point by point

OK... the cub is bored... time to do another take-apart, point by point.  (Oh, if only my boss at the pizza joint realized what sort of bombastic, pretentious circumlocution he's participated in unleashing upon the world by giving me today off... :-D)

"No, I don't mean he'll personally decorate the West Wing"
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Yep, you know them queers and their aesthetic abilities!  Outdated, deer-shack / fish-house stereotypes are HILARIOUS... and they make excellent contributions to the intellectual quality of one's argument!

"take up with Barney Frank"
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Ho-ho... them queers... they all know each other, and they're all the same.  Just like that Barack Obama kind of person, if ya read my meanin'.  And they all talk in that thar secret code... kinda like that "Esperanza" or whatever it is they've been cookin' up over at them evil Yewnited Nashuns.

"homofascist fan club"
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Homofascist?  Yep, I suppose the math is right... "fighting to be treated the same as any other human being in the eyes of the law" =  "running around stealing straights' Bibles, brainwashing them, and turning them gay at gunpoint".  These fundies' talent for teasing out hidden equivalencies is borderline prophetic.  (Well, I mean, it rhymes with "prophetic"...)

Then again, I don't mean to be ungrateful; "Homofascist Fan Club" is an excellent suggestion for the name of the post-punk revival band I hope to form sometime next week. :D

"...While Barack Obama may hail from Illinois, Hawaii, Kenya or wherever,"
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Yep - let's get our ambiguously camouflaged racial and national-origin slams in there while we're at it.  (As long as we're being hateful, let's practice efficient time-management!)

"his values discernibly stem from the underbelly of San Francisco's hyper-sexualized Castro District... the very San Francisco values that brought you San Francisco's public Folsom Street orgy"
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To my knowledge, Obama's only gay-related value is a basic recognition that queer folks are human beings just like anyone else, and entitled to equal protection under the law.  How this constitutes endorsement of public sexual extremity is, frankly, beyond me.  (This one falls apart even without an attempt to figure out on what basis any consensual sex act could really be considered "immoral".  A basis, that is, aside from Biblical admonitions, which don't work very well as argumentative foundations when one is presumably arguing to a general audience - containing many folks who don't buy Scriptural passages as valid premises in the first place.)

"the preposterous and oxymoronic notion of 'gay marriage'"
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Oh, that's rich.  Start out by slamming us for our purported promiscuity, and at the end of the VERY SAME PARAGRAPH, reiterate your opposition to the legal and social recognition of monogamous same-sex partnerships.  Barber's apparent capacity for short-term memory is so pathetic, it would make the citizens of Orwell's Oceania blanch.  (We are at war with Iraq.  We have always been at war with Iraq.  We have never been at war with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.  Or wait... was that "Eurasia" and "Eastasia"?  I'm having a hard time telling reality apart from fiction these days.  I apologize for my senility - but I'm 26, which is 73 in gay male years.  A familiar number, no doubt; as they say, I'm only one heartbeat away.)

"Obama, the latest politico to make 'em light in their loafers"
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OK, I'll grant you that the guy is charismatic, but according him the power to turn people gay is a bit, well, generous.  (Oh, and nice confusion of sexual orientation and gender behavior while you're at it.  Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with deviation from the majority in either, or with being a person who happens to have theirs line up in a fashion that matches social stereotypes; I'm just calling him out for the factual misunderstanding inherent in his proposed inextricable linkage between these traits).

"he would nonetheless arrogantly disregard the vast majority of our military leaders"
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Vast majority?  Since when?  Wasn't there a poll about four months ago (linked here on Pam's, as a matter of fact) suggesting that 79% of enlisted personnel and 53% of officers would have no problem with an openly GLBTQ person in their unit?  That's not ANY kind of majority against - much less a "vast" one!

"and allow open homosexuals and cross-dressers to infiltrate the ranks of the armed forces"
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"Infiltrate".  Nice fear-inducing word choice.  (Oh, and again with the confusion of orientation and behavior, this time in the realm of dress.  I thought we'd worked this whole thing out a long time ago.  Did this guy ride in on a Delorean at 88 mph or something?!?  Not to mention, what opportunity is afforded military enlistees to dress in anything save for olive drab?)

"thereby disrupting military readiness and unit cohesion"
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Conclusion without argumentation.  Please present a case as to the precise how and why of this process - or, failing that, at least evidence that there would be a problem.  (And bear in mind that the poll referenced above seems to indicate otherwise.)

"radical social experimentation"
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Hold it - putting GLBTQ folks in the same work environment with straight folks now constitutes "radical social experimentation"?  Out GLBTQ people have - gasp! - already been working with straight folks for years in most parts of this country, and while there are still some places we're not accepted (and some tragic homophobic outbursts), it doesn't seem to have done a damn thing to decrease productivity...

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by: CubPaws2008 @ Sun Oct 26, 2008 at 16:13:05 PM CDT

Odd

I only ever hear from such cheap dates as La Barbarianm Dobson, Wildmon and Bam Bam on this site, and you're to be commended Pam for keeping them hoisted by their own petard.  But no one else seems to be paying them much attention.  You never hear about them on Drudge, the NYT, the WashPo, CNN, the BBC, Coulter, Limbaugh, Krauthammer, Kagan, Dowd, Malkin, Charen, Coulter, Cohen, Karensky, Chris Ayres, or even Sullivan.  Even Jim Burroway gives them scant recognition. My dog gets less attention barking to the wind than you give these ridiculous people.  

Though one must always be vigilant to the militant ignorance these people exploit and promote, it's worth noting that very few others are listening to them. You'll not find any of these people in the MSM. Unless you go looking for them.    

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by: Brian @ Sun Oct 26, 2008 at 16:40:46 PM CDT

Fox News does put LaBarbera, Dobson and Bam-Bam

  on their shows.  Although not lately as Fox has been consumed with Ayers.

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

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by: HappyCat @ Sun Oct 26, 2008 at 16:54:03 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Still worth some time

Despite their comparatively low national MSM exposure, these furthest-of-the-far-right jerks have managed to find numerous other methods of successfully exercising their pernicious influence... for instance, the pressure tactics they exerted against McDonald's after hearing that the company made a donation to the National Lesbian and Gay Chamber of Commerce.

Wildmon, Barber, and their ilk also make their share of appearances in regional media outlets, and in the Christian Right's own self-referential media infrastructure... which is a lot more extensive than one might expect.  Not only do they have numerous standard FM broadcast outlets - they've also got a gigantic network of "translators", which are low-powered FM stations that are allowed only to relay the content of other FM signals.  [For those who are interested, technical details follow the main body of the post, so as not to MEGO those who aren't.]

I guess the main thrust of the matter is that, while you're absolutely right that these folks don't obtain as much national media access as their somewhat-more-mainstream conservative counterparts, they really are still worth worrying about (as you did note in your second paragraph).  The jury's out on just how much worry they deserve... but I, personally, err on the side of worrying too MUCH.  Their influence might not weigh a whole lot, but they're sitting SO far out on the political seesaw that a little bit of mass creates a lot of problems.

---NERD STUFF BEGINS HERE---

Translators above 92 on the dial are required to receive their programming directly over the air from another frequency, so these mostly sit on the edge of weak stations' coverage and expand them into other nearby towns or suburbs of the city where their parent station is located.  But translators below 92 are allowed to receive the programming by any method, including Internet and satellite relays.  So what the fundies will often do is find an opening for a translator on, say, 90.5, and bring down their national feed to the local translator by satellite.  Now, if this is several miles from their target area, no big deal; they just obtain a number of other translators on the (more numerous) frequencies above 92, and feed the audio from 90.5 on down the chain, over the air.

The real bastard in all this is that loopholes in FCC regulations make it MUCH easier to get a translator than to get an LPFM (low-powered FM, a class permitted to originate its own programming).  Even though translators are actually permitted to transmit with somewhat MORE power than LPFM's, they can sit closer to other stations (both in dial position and geographically) than LPFM's can - a horrendous double standard of which the Religious Right has taken full advantage.  Because interference protection of a station often extends a ways beyond the station's useful transmission range (in order to provide some buffer room), the Religious Right's translator invasion has, in some cities, completely knocked out even the few LPFM opportunities that were present.  (Here in the Twin Cities, we have a total of two satellite-fed translators and NINE over-the-air ones!)

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by: CubPaws2008 @ Sun Oct 26, 2008 at 19:53:51 PM CDT

[ Parent ]