This week, movie producer Brett Ratner was forced out as the producer of the Oscars telecast after using a gay slur on Howard Stern’s radio show. Let me begin by pointing out that Brett Ratner is an idiot. Anyone who uses the slur he used in an interview — even an interview with Howard Stern — is an idiot. However, the real story here isn’t that some idiot in Hollywood said something stupid. The real story is the situational morality and selective outrage of the left — and in particular the gay left.
Where was the left’s outrage when an actor like Orlando Jones joked about killing Sarah Palin? Where is the left’s outrage when Rosie O’Donnell talks about 9/11 being an inside job? Was Jones blacklisted in Hollywood? Was Rosie forced to walk across broken glass and hot coals to beg for forgiveness? No, these and other Hollywood idiots get a free pass because they chose to bash a person or group that the left has decided is worthy of hate and scorn. The hypocrisy is stunning and no group is more stunning in its hypocrisy and its selective outrage than the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Definition (GLAAD).
GLAAD is the leading mouthpiece for the gay Gestapo in this country. While pretending to be the vanguard for tolerance and diversity, the gay Gestapo is actually committed to stomping out anyone who doesn’t buy into their radical left-wing political agenda. For all the talk of “tolerance” and “diversity,” it is clear that there is zero tolerance for ideological diversity with the gay Gestapo.
GLAAD’s tag line is “Words and images matter.” Of course, this didn’t stop GLAAD from giving its “Blogger of the Year Award” to Joe Jervis of the blog “Joe My God.” Jervis’s blog, which has been the subject of a Daily Caller story in the past, regularly attacks gay conservatives. As was pointed out in the Daily Caller story from earlier this year, “Jervis’s site is littered with hateful and misogynistic comments on his message boards …”
Unbelievably, Jervis goes as far as allowing calls for actual violence against gay conservatives to stand on his site. On two separate occasions, Jervis has openly ridiculed incidents of violent anti-gay hate crimes against gay conservatives. Apparently, words and images don’t matter to GLAAD’s members as long as the subject of those attacks is someone they disagree with politically.
Let me be clear, I am no fan of the PC police. I think people should be able to speak their minds and do so in clear and unequivocal — even shocking — language. I am certainly no stranger to pushing the rhetorical limits. That having been said, however, it is simply preposterous that any group claiming that “words and images matter” would choose to honor and celebrate a blogger who so routinely engages in the very rhetoric it claims to oppose.
GLAAD simply has absolutely no credibility whatsoever. It’s absolutely Orwellian to believe that these people should be allowed to serve as the policemen of what is or isn’t rhetoric that crosses the line.
I am incredibly disappointed that Ratner gave into the bullying of GLAAD. Ratner should never have penned the ridiculously over-the-top apology letter that he did (or should I say sign the ridiculous letter that was clearly written by GLAAD’s PC communications department). Instead of agreeing to be sent to GLAAD’s re-education camp, Ratner should have stood up to the gay Gestapo. He apologized for what he said, he admitted it was stupid, and agreeing to become the latest pawn in GLAAD’s never-ending ideological warfare is akin to negotiating with terrorists. Every time Ratner or another Hollywood idiot gives into GLAAD, they are simply encouraging GLAAD to continue its partisan jihad.
Before GLAAD or anyone else on the gay left get to hold others accountable, they should be forced to hold themselves accountable. GLAAD should be forced to live by the standard it expects the rest of the world to live by.
After meeting with Ratner, GLAAD’s Senior Director of Programs and Communications Herndon Graddick said, “When we sat down with Brett today, he seemed very sincere in his desire to use this experience as a way to begin speaking out against anti-gay language in popular culture. We believe his resignation is just the first step and will be announcing a series of concrete actions with Brett in coming days and weeks.”
The concrete action that should be taken is by GLAAD — not by Brett Ratner. When will GLAAD speak out and make it clear that attacks against gay conservatives, particularly violent physical attacks, are simply unacceptable? When will GLAAD rebuke the hateful rhetoric coming from its own vaunted “blogger of the year”?
If it is “words and images” that really matter, and not simply political ideology, then GLAAD should prove it.
Christopher R. Barron is a Republican political consultant and Chairman of the Board of GOProud, a national organization for gay conservatives and their allies. He blogs at Red Barron.
