Howdy!


I have discovered that one of the many collateral benefits of being mentioned on extremist right-wing talk radio is that you subsequently receive a lot of extremist right-wing blog comments and E-mails. This has several advantages. First, you know that your computer is indeed working. You also have the opportunity bask in the warm glow of the knowledge that there are many people far more insane than you. Also, I think I get USAir miles, but I'm not sure.

Because most of the people leaving messages on my blogs are anonymous, I have no way of replying to them directly. All I can do is post another blog. Either that or go to a Sarah Palin Rally and just start chatting with the all of the "Patriots" who "love America" but hate almost everyone in it. But if I want someone to wink at me and say "you betcha" a lot, I'll just hang out with "Squawkers" the plastic parrot my wife gave my for my birthday. So instead, I will reply to one point that many of my right-wing friends made in their replies to my blog.

To recap, I said that Mr. Wilkow referred to gays as "filthy sodomites". He said that he said "vile sodomites" instead (which is actually worse, if you are filthy, at least you can clean yourself up. Vile is forever) and that in any case, he wasn't referring to all gays, just one named Perez Hilton. This argument was picked up by his followers many of whom wrote a version of the following to me:

"Hey, you America hating hippie. Are you stupid, or dumb, or not very intelligent, I can't figure it out. I say stupid, but my girlfriend says dumb. My mother in law however thinks its more like an idiot...(this went on for a while). Andrew Wilkow, is absolutely right about Perez Hilton. He was not being anti-gay. Perez Hilton commits Sodomy, so he is a "sodomite", and Andrew thinks he is vile, so he is a "vile sodomite". See Andrew was technically correct. And my sister just called and said you were more of a dufus than a moron...etc.

So the argument here is that Mr. Wilkow is literally correct and therefore not being offensive at all. This is of course nonsense. But lets deconstruct it a bit.

First, before we even get into parsing the phrase, one wonders why Mr. Hilton's sexuality is even relevant. I do not know anything about Mr. Hilton. I understand he is some sort of gossip columnist. I do not read gossip columnists. Until Lindsey Lohan, or Heidi Montag or Brangelina or Bennifer start caring about my personal life, I'm not really that interested in theirs. So I have no brief for Mr. Hilton.

But whatever it is he did to piss off Mr. Wilkow (and based on Wilkow's reaction to me, it was probably saying something less than worshipful about Mr. Wilkow), it probably had nothing to do with who Mr. Hilton sleeps with. So Wilkow's choice to use any term for "gay" in connection to Hilton would be a homophobic statement. Why mention it if it isn't relevant unless you think it will cast Hilton in a negative light.

But more to the point, lets look at the term "sodomite". That is a pejorative term. Gay people do not refer to themselves as sodomites. No mainstream politician or media refers to them by that term. Only people who don't like gay people use that term.

The only other time I've heard the word is in the context of religious-right preachers talking about how gay people will all go to hell (as opposed to Pat Robertson, who swindles sick people by claiming he can heal them through their television, for whom God has prepared a special place of eternal splendor and bliss!).

It is true that when one hears the term one recognizes that it refers to gay people. I am Jewish. Historically the term "Kike" has referred to people like me. If you hear the term "Kike", you probably know the speaker is referring to a Jewish person. So if someone were to refer to a Shule-going individual as a "Vile Kike", you could argue that it is technically true. Similarly, someone could refer to Clarence Thomas as a "Vile N-Word", knowing that the N-Word is a well-known, if horrific term for black people. So you could argue that you are just being technically correct.

Along the same lines, since these folks argue that Mr. Perez does commit sodomy (I've never actually witnessed that, but I'll take their word for it) he can be appropriately referred to as a "sodomite" no matter what people think of that term. But aren't Arab-Americans insulted by people referring to them as "Camel-Jockeys". I suppose you can say that "jockeys technically ride animals" and that "camels are animals" and that some people living on the Arabian Peninsula ride camels, that using the term "Camel-Jockey" is just being literally accurate. But I wouldn't try it on a trip to Bahrain.

But could you seriously argue that you are not being offensive, hateful or bigoted? The short answer is No. Actually, the long answer is No too. So it is a bit disingenuous to say that Wilkow was just being informative when he chose to identify Mr. Hilton as gay and then use an offensive pejorative, prefaced by the term "vile". If a stupid dufus like me can put that together, surely an infallible genius, who is always right while we are always wrong could figure that out as well. And that's the end of the story.