The sad thing is, in a roundabout way, Arpaio has a point.  Those of us who vociferously criticize hatemongers like he and Ann Coulter and WBC or whoever do give them a lot of power and free publicity.  This is the reason why they behave so outrageously.

I actively avoid discussions about the Phelps and their ilk for that very reason.

NPBR… I fucking love you.

Dear Beakers,

The Iowa State Cyclones handed you your fourth loss of the season today. (Though, luckily for you sad sacks, it’s the only one that counts at this point.) 

I just wanted to take this moment to tell you all to go fuck a rabid hedgehog, you arrogant, self-indulged pieces of shit. I don’t want to hear another word about how you’re supposedly the best team in the conference, even in what is clearly a down year for your program. Nor do I want to hear about your supposedly loyal fan base, who emptied out the Sprint Center like a bath tub filled with piranha the night Davidson kicked your asses.  (And why does your team have such problems with mid-majors anyway?)

Your team is a bunch of pansy-ass tin-men with no heart, no balls, and nothing going for them except the good fortune of losing once in conference and having a legitimate player of the year candidate. 

And, I am really going to enjoy watching you pathetic fucks crying on each others’ shoulders when the Jeffrey Rollins Pre-School Pee-Wee team knocks your ass out of the tourney.

…

However, props in perpetuity to Tyshawn Taylor for getting laid on center court at the Phog.  I don’t care what team you play for. That’s fucking cool.

The above quote was proudly spoken by one of my (normally sweet and kind) bus companions this morning, and subsequently sent me from zero to pissed off in approximately 0.2702857082375 seconds. There are some things that I can let slide, but my experience with the harm that these beliefs cause to queer people has given me a low tolerance of such blatant ignorance.

To make a long story short, I called the woman what she was… an idiot… and when she protested, I pointed out that she very specifically stated that she doesn’t care what anyone says. That, my friends, is idiocy. Being willing to hold a discriminatory and baseless belief despite the fact that gayness is present in nature, and the millions of people worldwide who are gay, is absurd.

I only hope that there weren’t any queer people on the bus who had to hear this lady’s shit, and if there were, then seeing someone stick up for them gave them some confidence.

Hateful words, discriminatory beliefs, and self-serving stupidity cause infinitely more harm to queer people than physical violence. Your beliefs are not benign, and spewing your idiocy in a public place serves no purpose but to validate baseless discrimination and hatred. You are every bit as complicit in the suicide epidemic as the assholes who get their rocks off tormenting their classmates.

I challenge anyone who thinks gayness is wrong to spend a year of their life volunteering at facilities that help homeless teens, and your eyes will be opened by the number of people you meet who were thrown out of their homes for being gay. Perhaps then you’ll begin to question the utter stupidity of the notion that being gay is a willful choice… then again… that would require you to be something other than a dogma-spewing, ignorant jesus-freaky automaton.