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| That's a worrying smile, I think (S) |
Todd Akin – already well known for his exemplary knowledge of how science (and in particular pregnancy) works – has now claimed that breast milk can “cure” homosexuality. Criticised by many for saying that in the case of “legitimate rape”, women’s bodies “have a way of shutting that whole thing down”. The Republican Senate candidate for Missouri has had calls from his party to step down so they can replace him. Rather amusingly, he has refused to do this (fully supported, of course, by the Democratic candidate Claire McCaskil).
The Republican told reporters “female breast milk - when fed directly to an adult homosexual male daily for at least four weeks - has a 94% chance of permanently curing homosexual perversions”. He also said “I don't think homosexuality is a choice. We evangelicals, we know that it's a disease. But the good news is - we have the cure", and going on to say that "the National Institutes of Health has treated hundreds of young men through clinical trials at their headquarters in Maryland. They don't want the public to know because the secular liberal elites have succeeded in brainwashing the public into believing that homosexuality is a positive thing."
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| "Please vote for me" |
"We now know how to purge men of sin and put them on a path towards god.
Why can't every gay man in America have that knowledge? Just four weeks
of live breastfeeding can cure them of their terrible suffering. Why
aren't we talking about this?"
Considering the idiocy that several political men in the US (the
Republicans, it’s always the Republicans) have come out with, it’s not
at all surprising that some people can put any quote into the mouth of a
Republican with a less than stellar record and the vast majority of the
internet will believe it.
Even if the source happens to be a parody news site that actually says everything is a joke at the top of the page.
I admit it wasn’t until someone pointed it out to me that I realised
that the Daily Currant was a spoof news organisation. They also
published a (sadly untrue) story about Rick Santorum mistaking the
Grindr iPhone app – used to contact gay and bisexual men in your area –
for an app to locate the nearest Starbucks. “Grindr? What? No. The
yellow one? Oh right. OK. Grindr. Like coffee grinds. Yeah that's
something I downloaded for coffee” grumbled the imaginary
caffeine-deprived Santorum.
Why is everyone
so quick to jump on false news stories, however? Much
like the overnight popularity of the story about sassy Samsung paying a
billion dollar fine to Apple in five cent pieces, sent in trucks to
Apple’s headquarters (spoiler alert: it was fake), the popularity of the
“breast milk cures gays” story is surprising. It was just the right
mixture of half-truths and over the top quotations that actually sounded
like they might be said by such a sleazy guy.
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| "Pls" |
Unfortunately
for the people who are the subject of these articles, there is often
little to be done to salvage the situation. This is often because
although they may not have said exactly what has been quoted, they have
actually said something equally bigoted or generally stupid. In Akin’s
case it’s the “legitimate rape” failure of a quote, but it could be
anything – from “I think that homosexuality is a choice”, all the way up
to “'Oh, so you're saying we should go out and start killing
[homosexuals], no?' — I'm saying the government should. They won't but
they should”.
That last quote there was from the charming Pastor Curtis Knapp of New Hope Baptist Church in Kansas. I’m sure he’s a riot at parties. The problem is that this was actually said by him – the full quote is:
"They should be put to death. That's what happened in Israel. That's why homosexuality wouldn't have grown in Israel. It tends to limit conversions. It tends to limit people coming out of the closet. — 'Oh, so you're saying we should go out and start killing them, no?' — I'm saying the government should. They won't but they should. [You say], 'oh, I can't believe you you're horrible. You're a backwards Neanderthal of a person.' Is that what you're calling scripture? Is God a Neanderthal backwards in his morality. Is it his word or not? If it's his word, he commanded it. It's his idea, not mine. And I'm not ashamed of it."
With stories like this, it becomes more apparent that someone should have mentioned to this guy that religion is a deeply personal affair, which shouldn’t be pushed on others. Regardless, it’s getting to the point where right wing Americans have almost said everything idiotic that can be said, and it’s getting hard to separate the legitimate stories from the parodies.
Let it never be said that the QUILTBAGs are a group of people that say and believe anything about their opponents – I’d rather we didn’t have that in common with the bigots – so please, check sources, don’t just accept stories that don’t appear on reputable news sites, and make sure that there isn’t an article somewhere saying that the story is false. It takes a little longer, but I'm starting to learn that otherwise we're not much better than the other side. Let them dig their own holes - we don't need to exert any effort for that.
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