It’s always a wonder to me how, even though becoming a college professor is predicated upon getting an education, occasionally an anti-gay wingnut squeaks by. A professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire is in trouble for sending an anti-gay e-mail to a student, because he’s not only an anti-gay wingnut, he also apparently is lacking in the social skills and judgment departments, as well:
The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire plans to take administrative action against a professor who sent an antigay e-mail imploring a student not to host a campus gay and lesbian film festival.
According to the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram, Tom Hilton, the chairman of the university’s information systems department, sent the e-mail to senior Crystal Kazik in late September urging her to reconsider the Eau Queer Film Festival, which she helped organize.
“I decry attempts to legitimize [homosexuals'] addictions and compulsions. These, our fellow humans, deserve our best efforts to help them recover their lives. We only hurt them further when we choose to pretend that these walking wounded are OK the way they are, that their present injuries are the best they can hope for in life,” he said in the e-mail, which he also sent to a women’s studies department staff member.
My goodness.
One would think that, on a college campus, this guy might have been exposed to the fact that his mythology about gay people being “walking wounded” would have been debunked by now by the harsh light of reality, but never underestimate the self-delusion of the American Wingnut specimen. They will tell themselves anything to protect themselves from having to confront the stark differences between their worldview and the grown-up, three dimensional world.
Sidenote: Can we discuss the fact that all male anti-gay wingnuts look strikingly similar to each other? They all have this look of blissful ignorance iced with abject fear. It’s weird.
“Can we discuss the fact that all male anti-gay wingnuts look strikingly similar to each other?”
You mean that deep-in-the-closet look?
“Can we discuss the fact that all male anti-gay wingnuts look strikingly similar to each other?”
That’s because they’re all crammed into the same mold–the one they’d like to cram us into. Everyone has to be exactly alike in dress, thought, speech, etc. If we’re not we must be coerced into compliance lest the collective feel uncomfortable.
He should save the hate for closed-door discussions at his local (presumably) mormon church.
He thinks he is still in Utah, although it recently went out of fashion with the church for members to be SEEN AND HEARD being critical of Gays, whom they equate to unfortunate misguided souls, or to cripples, in their web statements.
Funny thing, when I saw that photo of him, I thought, “That’s just what he WOULD look like.” Then I thought, what an unworthy sentiment! I shouldn’t be invoking tired old stereotypes. This is a high-minded, serious blog; surely the editors are above that. I should be, too. Then I saw your sidenote and nearly fell out my chair laughing. Seriously, I think these guys all want to look like Newt Gingrich.
Um, memo to Tom Hilton: WI was the first state in the nation to prohibit sexual-orientation discrimination by statute, which is still in force. Subsequent statutes prohibit discrimination against students in the state, and include sexual orientation as a protected category.