Wingnuts live in their own world, and they do better when they’re talking to each other, because there, in their echo chamber, no one is around to laugh at them. Except, ahem, those of us who pay attention and expose them to a wider audience.
The other day, Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, one of those redneck goobers like Louie Gohmert and Paul Broun, went on Bill Maher’s show and let those mean reality-based people, including a conservative National Review columnist, make him look like a fool on the subject of evolution. This is a fantastic clip, if only for the constant idiot smile Kingston wears, that whole “where am I and who are all these people?” look so often seen on the faces of garden variety wingnuts:
Kingston was obviously bruised by the normal people, so he ran into the arms of a fellow wingnut-in-arms, Bryan Fischer, whose intellectual prowess will never threaten a man like Jack, so that they could tell each other that liberals are mean and they’re right. It’s truly sad viewing:
Of course, Bryan Fischer’s organization is the American Family Association, one of the most vicious groups on the SPLC’s list of hate groups, and Kyle at Right Wing Watch points out that Kingston isn’t the only Republican politician whining to and cozying up with this hateful hick; recently both Tim Pawlenty and Roger Wicker have laid crying on the couch of Bryan.
The website for the upcoming documentary Religulous describes Bill Maher as “known for his astute analytical skills, irreverent wit and commitment to never pulling a punch.”
While I’m eager for documentary filmmakers to expose the self-contradictory fictions and power-grabs that corrupt religious institutions, I’m afraid I see little insight or humor in the following short excerpt.
The “ex-gay” man is John Westcott, a Florida man who walked away from a seven-year committed gay relationship to become an antigay activist.
Nowadays, Westcott proclaims he is freed from the “gay lifestyle” and says “I don’t believe that anyone is gay.” In the curiously named New Man Magazine in 2006, Westcott asserted long-rejected myths about homosexuality as if they were fact:
“There are many root causes [for homosexuality],” Westcott says. “But some of the common denominators are: A breakdown in a same-sex parent relationship, not relating to other male peers, an early exposure to sexuality and sexual abuse.”
Earlier this year, Westcott violated Canadian TV ethical standards with an ad that supported antigay discrimination as a means of suppressing the visibility of gay people and increasing the visibility of self-closeted ex-gays.
Maher has been prone to cherry-pick various religions’ lunatics, as if one group’s fringe could automatically discredit the entire group. Has Maher resisted that temptation with Religulous? We’ll find out in 10 days: The movie enters broad release on October 8.
