The Advocate: Telling Lies For A Living

"You can say anything you want because you support power, and nobody expects you to justify anything. For example, on the unimaginable circumstance that I was on, say, Nightline, and I was asked, say, "Do you think Kadhafi is a terrorist?" I could say, "Yeah, Kadhafi is a terrorist." I don't need any evidence. Suppose I said, "George Bush is a terrorist." Well, then I would be expected to provide evidence, "Why would you say that?""

Noam Chomsky, 2002 interview.

I won't dwell on this story, I'll just get even more fucked off with everything than I was earlier today.
I'll just document what happened, as it demonstrates the spectacular achievements of hegemony, even in a gay media one might expect to challenge it.

Yesterday the above story went up on The Advocate, probably America's, and therefore the world's, most-read gay news source.
The gist of it? Islamic suicide bombers have been exempted from a ban on sodomy as regular bummings will make it easier to fit explosives up their arse; (""Is it permissible for me to let one of the jihadi brothers sodomize me to widen my anus if the intention is good?")
The story is so ludicrous someone told me they thought it was from The Onion.
Of course, it's all bollocks.
Here it is roundly and thoroughly debunked as "pure nonsense" by the Electronic Intifada. 
It had been fed to The Advocate by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a far-right Zionist US thinktank.
Did The Advocate try and check it?
No, why bother? They just ran it.
(It's worth noting that Michael Lucas, the Zionist, Islamophobic, racist Neo-con porn mogul is an Advocate columnist). 
The fiction soon got tweeted and blogged and published all over the world. 
I won't dwell on this, but most annoyingly by Peter Tatchell.
It's depressing that someone who prides himself on being sceptical and does so much good work and critical progressive analysis should fall for this Islamophobic Orientalist guff.
Not the first time, though.
Tatchell has since retweeted a link to the Electronic Intifada article, but as far as I'm aware has not personally retracted it or apologised.
At the time of typing the story is still on The Advocate's website.
It's all so fucking shameful, but sadly none of this sorry episode surprised me. 

 

 • 'What People In The US Know About Islam Is A Stupid Cliché' Edward W Said.