Andrew Sullivan: On Brendan Eich

The guy who had the gall to express his First Amendment rights and favor Prop 8 in California by donating $1,000 has just been scalped by some gay activists. After an OKCupid decision to boycott Mozilla, the recently appointed Brendan Eich just resigned under pressure:

In a post at Mozilla’s official blog, executive chairwoman Mitchell Baker confirmed the news with an unequivocal apology on the company’s behalf. “Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it,” Baker wrote. “We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.”

The action comes days after dating site OKCupid became the most vocal opponent of Eich’s hiring. Mozilla offered repeated statements about LGBT inclusivity within the company over the past two weeks, but those never came with a specific response from Eich about his thousands of dollars of donations in support of Proposition 8, a California ballot measure that sought to ban gay marriage in the state.

Will he now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not the stocks? The whole episode disgusts me – as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society. If this is the gay rights movement today – hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else – then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us.

The Dish.

Not often I agree with Sullivan, but what boring bullies and cry babies some gay people have become.

Just say no to silly faggot witch hunts!

Update: Unsurprisingly leading gaybore Patrick Strudwick begs to differ. Hilariously the record-breakingly hysterical and ideologically muddled Mr Smugtwit accuses Sullivan of being 'hysterical and ideologically muddled'.

Update2; James Ball on Guardian Cif says 'his downfall is a victory for freedom of expression'. Sorry?

Update: Meanwhile all the Queerty gays are MAD AS HELL!

Alec Baldwin: Goodbye Public Life

Now I loathe and despise the media in a way I did not think possible. I used to engage with the media knowing that some of it would be adversarial, but now it’s superfluous at best and toxic at its worst. If MSNBC went off the air tomorrow, what difference would it make? If the Huffington Post went out of business tomorrow, what difference would it make? Arianna Huffington accomplished what she wanted to accomplish. She created this wonderful thing. And what have they done with that? They want clicks, I get it. They’ve gotta have clicks for their advertisers, so they’re going to need as much Kim Kardashian and wardrobe malfunctions as possible. The other day, they had a thing on the home page about pimples. Tripe. Liberal and conservative media are now precisely equivalent.

I’m aware that it’s ironic that I’m making this case in the media—but this is the last time I’m going to talk about my personal life in an American publication ever again.

From a very, very long open letter on Vulture by Alec Baldwin, following accusations of homophobia - or rather of using homophobic language - last year, "by Andrew Sullivan, Anderson Cooper, and others in the Gay Department of Justice".

He's kinda right. Seems you can't say a bad word - like 'queen' FFS!!? - without the pink witch-hunters lighting their torches. 

NB He doesn't say he's retiring, as some have claimed.

Tom Daley: Gay

There has been much chatter about whether we should say Tom Daley is gay, or bi.
Like on Queerty.
Pink News.
Huff Post Gay etc.
Some quite spectacular intellectual gymnastics going on there.
Wet liberal hand-wringing ahoy!
Like anyone, Tom should be free to define - or not define - himself, but...
Question: When you first saw the Olympic diver what did you think to yourself?
"Oh, he seems bisexual."
Or... "OMG! What a screaming gaylord!!!"
Andrew Sullivan - not someone I usually agree with - wrote much sense here; Let me place a bet, Tom Daley will never have sex with a woman again.
[Again???]
Tom Daley is gay.
As gay as a lorry.
A big pink lorry with 'FAG!' written on the side.
He is gay.
Gay gay GAY!
You can see her gayness from outer space!
Tom Daley is gay!
Get over it.
Merry Christmas.
x

Pope Francis: Frankie Say...

“We need to proclaim the Gospel on every street corner,” the pope says, “preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing, even with our preaching, every kind of disease and wound. In Buenos Aires I used to receive letters from homosexual persons who are ‘socially wounded’ because they tell me that they feel like the church has always condemned them. But the church does not want to do this. During the return flight from Rio de Janeiro I said that if a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge. By saying this, I said what the catechism says. Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.

“A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being. In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with mercy. When that happens, the Holy Spirit inspires the priest to say the right thing...

“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time..."
 
Quotes taken from some Italian Jesuit magazine - his first major interview as Pope - and published in English in America: The National Catholic Review.

"I don't like to keep going on about this but..."
Some gayers seem to be rather over-excited about this statement, claiming it means "Pope Francis is okay with gays and says the church should be too" (Queerty).
Andrew Sullivan wrote it was "a revelation" and "wonderful to hear".
Though he's a rightwing gay Catholic, so often says silly things.
But note his holy popeyness insists "the teaching of the church... is clear."
Meaning, presumably, that homosexuals will still all be cast into the seventh circle of hell.
And if "it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time'', how about shutting up about it for a bit?
Not that I give a felch what you think about anything anyway...

Brian Sewell: Suicide Is Painless

How I'm going to commit suicide by Brian Sewell: A shockingly honest (and beautifully elegant) confession by Britain's most celebrated art critic...

Mail On Sunday.

No comment, but respec' due, older gay dude (who's as bonkers as a bonk full of bonking bonks).

PS Andrew Sullivan recently blogged about wrestling over putting his dog, Dusty, down - which got a zillion times as much response, of course.

2011: A Very Good Year?

The festive silly season is upon us.
When newspapers give up on news and that and start padding out their pages with retrospectives, Reviews of The Year/s, and endless Best Of lists.
Funny, it seems to start earlier every year, doesn't it?
The Observer is first out of the mixed metaphors.
"2011", it notes sagely, was, "A good year to be gay."
Further, it's been "extraordinary".
The piece is an interesting overview written by Aaron Hicklin, editor-in-chief of Out magazine.
Though Scottish born-and-bred, Hicklin now abides Stateside and writes accordingly, so it's hard to know quite why The Observer thought this was the most relevant way of looking at the world of gay for its readers.
The Tea Party, Don't Ask Don't Tell, marriage equality in New York, President Obama, Glee, Modern Family, Neil Patrick Harris...
No island is an island, of course, so tidal waves in the US can cause ripples on the shores of the UK, but why didn't the Observer get Aaron or someone to look - specifically - at what has happened over here?
Most oddly of all a sub-editor has condensed his schtick to; "Here, Aaron Hicklin, editor-in-chief of Out magazine, looks forward to the end of gay culture..."
He doesn't - surely the article contests the gay-identity deathwish of right-wing anti-gay, gay commentators like Andrew Sullivan?
Extraordinary.

Stephen Fry: The Wolf Is At The Door

Can there be any more dispiriting trick in the journalists' lexicon than to start a column with the word "So"?
"So Stephen Fry has been in the midst of a whirlwind of condemnation for his remarks in an interview for a gay magazine in which he seemed to say that women — unlike gay men — don’t actually enjoy sex, and have sex only to secure relationships..."
Naomi Wolf writes in The Sunday Times - regardless of the fact Stephen Fry did not say that.
But after siezing the wrong idea, she then proceeds to take it for a walk.
Are some of her best friends gay?
You betcha!
If you believe Naomi, she was cruising the Castro in the Seventies...
"I remember hearing this oddly jingoistic notion — that gay men were the ones who really 'got it' about men and sex, and women had no clue and were just going through the motions — from a few gay men in the Castro district of San Francisco in the early 1970s."
It's such a cavalcade of nonsense it would be cruel to pick points in it.
But here's a highlight; "To state the obvious, women don’t tend to “cottage” because they can get raped and beaten up..."
To state the obvious gay men most often get beaten up when they are "cottaging" or "cruising".
Nor do they do it in inverted commas.
I could go on.
To be fair to Wolf, later in the week she did recant somewhat.
By adding the line; "To be fair to Fry, later in the week he did recant somewhat..."
Suffice to say that Wolf quotes two gay men approvingly; "the cutting edge" Andrew Sullivan and the "prophetic" Larry Kraymer.
It would be hard to find two bigger right-wing gay house trained homophobes - the "good" gays - apart from Mark Simpson, of course.
I. Give. Fucking. Up.