Since Carl Paladino is trying to walk back his homophobic remarks, let’s take a look at the whole speech. His remarks about homosexuals are around 5:50.
Even if he didn’t say “There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual”, Carl still manages to use them as the bogeyman in service of a tax credit for people who send their kids to parochial schools:
I just think my children and your children would be better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family. And I don’t want them to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option. It isn’t.
The notion that gay teachers “brainwash” children, and to use that as a justification for a tax credit that allows parents to put their kids in religious schools to avoid the evil gays, is every bit as offensive and disgusting as the remarks Carl chose not to read. And though it probably makes me an anti-semite, I don’t want a governor who reads whatever some right-wing rabbi shoves in front of his face, even if he edits it on the fly.
(video via Salon)
WereBear
I really really think they are dumb enough to think people sit around, weighing the pros and cons of particular sexual orientations, and then pick one.
Man. Really really thinking that has made my head hurt.
kommrade reproductive vigor
What’s really offensive is the same douchenozzle who plans to use his majikal governor powers to stop the building of community centers out of deference to peoples’ delicate feelings but couldn’t SKIP THE BULLSHIT ALL TOGETHER, in light of the suicide and the vicious anti-gay attacks that recently took place in the state he wants to govern, is breathing the same air I breathe.
Sorry about the RoS, but Jesus Christ, what the fuck?
Hal
Paladino isn’t anti-gay, though he makes anti-gay comments. (He has a gay boy on his staff!) He isn’t racist even though he sends out racist emails. (He’s in construction!) He isn’t a politician even though he’s spent millions of dollars of his own money on his campaign and given hundreds of thousands of dollars to politicians over the years. (Really, can any developer claim political immunity or naivete?)
He is an elite, insider with access most people do not have, but he wants you to think he’s just a normal, sane, concerned citizen who decided to run for Governor, all for the benefit of the people of New York, instead of just himself.
Napoleon
Wow, I guess that means that one of the kids from my class in parochial school, Joey V., didn’t really grow up to be gay like everyone, including himself, thinks he is.
Linda Featheringill
No religion is immune from having assholes among its followers.
That particular asshole rabbi is still an asshole.
Edit spelling.
Punchy
Why is he giving a speech to all those Amish folks?
JPL
Komrade on the previous comment mentioned the hypocrisy is Carl’s rants against gays.
Hiding your second family for 9 years has to have damaged the child.
soonergrunt
I’m fairly sure that Carl Paladino is not the guy to be talking about family values, because whenever he does, one must ask “WHICH” family value? The family of his wife and kids, or the family of his mistresss and illegitimate child that he ignored and hid for 10 years until he couldn’t anymore?
I think the homosexual couple who are faithful to each other and cherish each other is probably a better example for people to behave in a marriage than Carl’s indiscriminate fucking and spawning here and there.
But that’s just me.
artem1s
so get the frack out of the way and let people who love and are committed to one another go get married!
I think we all agree that hiding your actual marital status (bigamy) and denying the existence of your actual state of being is what makes for a bankrupt lifestyle.
Tom M
The notion that gay teachers “brainwash” children,
It’s the union that makes them do it, you know, it’s in the contract. I think that was in Waiting for Superman, too. Along with all the other bullshit.
When it comes to low-income schools, pseudo-liberals and media stooges have chased magic bullets since the 1960s. Frauds like Guggenheim always have some simple solution to sell. To appearances, they never have the slightest idea what they’re talking about.
Kryptik
This seems like a death sentence for him, especially in light of the whole ‘Bronx gang tortures 3 gay men’ and the Rutgers suicide thing. Sadly, I wonder if this would have ended up a net positive for him in other states. I mean, it’s baldly homophobic, but that seems to fly in flyover country. :/
Poopyman
When frickin’ Matt Lauer uses you as a pinata on national TV and you’ve got no good response, you know you’re toast.
Somewhere, somehow, this is good news for John McCain. Maybe he’ll go on TV and tell us exactly how.
MattF
Well, now we’re going to get a series of fluffy interviews where Paladino smiles really sincerely at the camera– thereby proving that he’s really a nice guy. Really really really.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Nobody should be shocked by any of this. Welcome to the Modern Republican Party.
The kicker, as always, is how effective my hapless Democratic party will be in using it on the campaign trail.
thomas Levenson
What Linda Fotheringgill said.
Speaking as a card carrying former Bar-Mitzvah boy, I’d say it would be anti-semitic not to disdain some right wing douchenozzle hiding behind his ordination to spew hate, just because he happens to have ended up in the rabbinate rather than some other branch of the clergy.
Just as it is anti-Christian not to call out Pat Roberts whenever he opens his mouth, or Bill Donahue, if you want to tackle influential laiety, and so on.
Those who use religious claims as weapons of hatred deserve our scorn and loathing, and those of us within religious traditions that sport unusually frisky ones need all the help we can get.
And Pam Geller is a shande, also too.
Southern Beale
I’m sorry but are we REALLY being lectured on morality by a guy who had kids with his mistress?
REALLY?
MAJeff
My favorite part is where mister horse-on-woman says we’ve got to stand up to the pornographers and perverts…and then launches into a critique of Cuomo for marching in a gay pride parade.
Kryptik
@thomas Levenson:
That’s the one thing that’s torn me away from organized religion: the organized part, since these days it seems like the organizations involved all too often act totally at odds with their own religion despite purporting to faithfully represent it in public.
Sad fact is that most of the public faces of the various religions are horrible examples of their respective faiths.
Daddy-O
mistermix, objecting to what the religiously insane want to cram down our throats most certainly does NOT make you an anti-semite.
Fuck those fools. They have no idea that which they are doing. They have no idea the can of worms they are opening. They have no idea that they are siding with the REAL Nazis, who will come for them NEXT. In a New York minute.
ChrisS
don’t care, ‘slong as Carl doesn’t raise my taxes.
/winger
Not for nothing, but all weekend I’ve been seeing a shit-ton of signs and commercials for the teatards running for state and federal offices. Other than a few random Valesky, Maffei or Andrew Cuomo commerical, there ain’t shit on the liberal side of life.
I went to the LaFayette Apple Fest this weekend, 40,000 locals expected to be there, and the road in (with stop & go traffic) was lined with Buerkle signs.
David
Is he saying that getting married is what determines sexual preference?
Or is he saying that even if you’re gay you should get married to someone of the opposite sex?
mikefromArlington
What’s the deal with those ridiculous hairdo’s?
Have they always been part of Jewish culture or what?
Sly
Some of my best colleagues in the public school system are gay, as were some of my best teachers went I was going through public schools. So this shit pisses me off to no end. The only travesty in the NY gubernatorial election will be that Andrew Cuomo will only beat this jerkoff by twenty points instead of eighty.
@Punchy:
I know you’re joking, but the insularity of the Satmar Hasidim (that largest Hasidic sect in NYC, located primarily in Williamsburg, Brooklyn) rivals that of the Amish. Perhaps surpasses it, given that they’re situated in one of the most diverse areas of the city. My sister lives in that neighborhood, and her friends of both the Conservative and Reform Jewish traditions refer to them as “that cult.”
valdivia
@thomas Levenson:
you get double points for the use of the word shande.
The rabbis assenting behind him in all their 16th century glory make the whole scene surreal. And I say this as someone who when married used to hang out with the douchenozzles myself. I know. I was young and stupid.
@mikefromArlington: the hairlocks on the side are biblically ordained but not curled up and so visible as they wear them. These are Hasidim (don’t know which sect) who usually dress the way their founding Rabbi did way back in the 17th or 19th century. Even to this day. Modern orthodox men have the hairlock on the side but it is rarely visible unless you’re looking for it.
Edited for grammar.
Daddy-O
@MAJeff: Well, it would seem that we all need to get on board with Paladino’s own particular brand of perversion. Then everything will be just peachy!
Do those Hasids know about that video? Would they be standing next to him if they did? It would appear that the world is FILLED with cretins, and asshats like Paladino make their money and careers from that simple fact.
Reminds me of the joke: A horse molester was being interviewed by the police. They asked him: Was it a male, or a female horse?
The horse molester’s indignant reply: Female! What, do you think I’m gay, or something?
(Apologies if this joke’s already been told a million times…)
;-)
Kryptik
@Daddy-O:
Yeah, only criticizing Israel, regardless of whether said criticism is valid or not, makes you an anti-semite these days.
Either that or TWM (Talking While Muslim). It’s so hard to keep track these days. But seriously, Hasids and the Ultra Orthodox Jews just….mleh. Those folk are the closest we’ll get in this country to actual Sharia. So it doesn’t surprise me that they’re wholeheartedly Paladino boosters.
Dennis SGMM
@WereBear:
I tried being gay the last time I went to IKEA. The stuff I bought still didn’t look right when I got it home.
aimai
I’m not sure the speech is intended to say that the brainwashers are actually gay teachers at all. Its a tenet of right wing and conservative beliefs that public school teachers, while not all gay, are devoted to an inclusive agenda which is itself really dangerous. That’s why the right wing is consistently opposed to “safe schools” and “anti bullying” curricula as well as sex ed. Its not that they think that all the teachers are gay–its that they object to the running of schools as though all the children and teachers are equally worthy of respect and safety. They want the schools to reflect an authoritarian hierarchy in which jocks/white kids/wealthy kids get better treatment and those lower down on the totem pole are shown, over and over again, that they must accept their lower position in life.
Parents of gay kids, or sexually active kids, who want the school to step in to police their child’s sexuality and morality are angry that public schools have been going in the opposite direction. They want to pull their kids out to make sure that the child remains under parental control.
That is, they want that until it turns out their kid is low down on the totem pole or that their sexuality or behavior is beyond what the school will tolerate. This is why striving middle class and religious families stretch to send their kids to private school until the kid is diagnosed with a major learning disability and then they pull them out and send them to public school where the school is obligated to teach them and to provide extra help. Or they send them to those schools to “correct” the child’s sexuality and end up sending the child to further abuse farther down the line when the school isn’t able to change anything.
PS: it takes some kind of Chutzpah for the father of a momser to lecture the rest of society about good family values.** (I append just a random googled quote to explain this.)
aimai
thomas Levenson
@valdivia: I love the smell of Yiddish in the morning.
Keith G
@Punchy: Damn you!
I nearly aspirated my toast.
More to the point, NPR ran one of the typical stories about Democratic enthusiasm: Obama Tries To Motivate Voters During Philly Rally .. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130483830
In it, a young woman self IDs as a liberal, but is so disappointed that she cannot bring herself to vote this year since Obama did not champion liberal causes.
Thought out the land there are many Paladino-like candidates who will win office thanks the the lack of effort of folks such as this woman.
She thinks she is disappointed now.
Sly
@Kryptik:
Actually, a number of Hasidic sects, including the Satmar, do not support Israel. They believe that the current state is an abomination, since the true nation of Israel can only be founded by the Messiah, and that modern Zionism is a violation of Biblical law. I know the Satmar at least have prohibitions against living in or even visiting Israel. There are some Satmar rabbis who claim that it is forbidden to even associate with Jews who lend their support to the state.
geg6
@Poopyman:
Well, I don’t know that Matt Lauer really smacked him around hard enough that the pinata actually broke, if you know what I mean. I saw the interview and didn’t see Lauer smacking all that hard.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Teabaggers are the children of momzers?
geg6
@Keith G:
Fuck that bitch. I’m sick of these so-called liberals pissed off that their pony is not forthcoming and that no unicorns have rained from the sky.
Any liberal who doesn’t understand the stakes and/or who sits this one out is no liberal, no matter what they claim.
Lurked
@Keith G:
I still believe such people are loud (and probably sought out by the press) but uncommon. The Democrats’ main problem is that significant groups in their base (we progressives flatter ourselves that we’re more than just one part of the base) are minorities, young people, and single women, and those groups all have historically low turnout for all elections, particularly midterms.
thomas Levenson
@Kryptik: Some years ago (2004) I gave a few talks at Gustavus Adolfus College in MN. That’s a Swedish Lutheran-affiliated college, one of several in that area.
My hosts were the nicest you can imagine, thoughtful, smart, sweet, and as far as I could tell on a short visit, as committed to living a (liberal) vision of a religion-informed life as I’ve ever met.
The occasion was a science fest — their annual Nobel conference, and at the last event, a panel discussion over dinner, a pastor asked me what I thought we as a country should do about religious literalism and scientific illiteracy.
I told him and the audience that while there are lots of things one may do, one of the most important is for religious leaders and believers to speak out against such nonsense in n explicit way.
Got general agreement — and I think folks like those I met there are trying — but the growth areas in American religion are the ones that work against such efforts.
All of which is to say that not all organized religion is the same, nor even organized.
(See Rogers, Will, on the Democratic Party.)
soonergrunt
@geg6:
Absofuckinglutely!
This country ALWAYS gets the leadership it deserves.
valdivia
@thomas Levenson:
Yeah. Keeps the tzures away ;)
Nick
@Lurked:
The Democrats main problem is the unprecedented excitement of Republicans. Their secondary problem is getting out their base. Even if they all turn out, Democrats are going to take a significant hit.
quaint irene
Of course not, he’s a ‘provocateur!’ Cue the NYT’s profile.
geg6
OT, but Peter Diamond, one of Obama’s nominees to the Federal Reserve, has won the Nobel Prize in economics (along with Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides) for his work on markets where buyers and sellers have trouble finding each other, focused on labor markets. Seems that this would be a case of the perfect guy at the perfect time for the Federal Reserve, wouldn’t it? What with all the discussion as to what, if anything, monetary policy and the powers of the Federal Reserve can do to influence job creation?
Sadly, Senator Richard Shelby is concerned that Diamond is not qualified to be a governor on the Federal Reserve and has placed a hold on his nomination. He, obviously, knows more about Diamond than that elitist Nobel committee.
r€nato
@geg6: sure they’re liberals.
They’re also quitters. Last I checked, when your team’s down 21-7 in the 2nd quarter, you don’t just throw in the towel.
JGabriel
mistermix @ top:
That depends.
Would you object just as strongly to the governor reading whatever a right-wing Christian fundamentalist shoves in front of his face?
If not, then: yes, you are an anti-semite.
If so, then: no, you are not an anti-semite, you are a Godless Commie traitor.
.
Culture of Truth
Other than that, he’s an ideal candidate.
ChrisS
Ah, the smell of hippy punching in the morning. I guess some can’t resist no matter what the topic is at hand.
Brilliant strategy!
Svensker
@Dennis SGMM:
Ha ha ha. Win.
JGabriel
geg6:
Clearly, that’s just those sociaIist Swedes and Norwegians trying to influence our governement. Where would we be without true patriots like Richard Shelby to protect us from the Scandinavian Menace?
.
mslarry
Mistermix if you’re an anti-semite because you’re calling out the rabbi’s disgusting bigotry than I guess I’m a racist against my own people. Cause this sister has been yelling from the rooftops to anyone who will listen about how much more disgusting “Bishop” Eddie Long has shown himself to be.
It’s our job to call them out, often. I know don’t about you, but I’ve had it up to my eyebrows w/mofo’s who spew hate under the guise of religion. Screw em’ all of them. They don’t deserve our forbearance.
r€nato
@ChrisS: I find the smell of being a quitter, even more pungent.
burnspbesq
Palladino is a horrid little toad. On that we can all agree.
My worry is that his support of tuition tax credits will make it impossible to have a reasoned discussion about tuition tax credits, which is an important discussion to have.
MikeJ
@r€nato:
But Obama insists on getting touchdown after touchdown by grinding out small yardage plays on the ground! I want every play to be a hail Mary pass or I’m taking my ball and going home!
Nick
@r€nato:
Ever wonder why most athletes are conservatives?
4tehlulz
@MikeJ: ‘sup Randy?
JGabriel
burnspbesq:
Not to undercut the intentions, which I’m sure are good, of people supporting tuition tax credits, but it’s a discussion that’s depressing to have — because what we should really be discussing are grants for anyone who needs them and shows the aptitude for it.
Yeah, yeah, I know, we don’t live in a world with unicorns and rainbows either. But we do live in a world where many countries do far better in ensuring access to higher education than we do.
.
Dennis SGMM
@Nick:
There’s also the fact that the 2006 mid-term saw a sharp rise in turnout among younger voters and that the youth vote was a big factor in Obama’s election. Although I haven’t seen any projections regarding the youth vote, I get the feeling that it will be substantially less than in 2006 or 2008.
aimai
@r€nato:
Sure, but this is precisely the problem with the whole drill sargent approach to getting the voters excited. In the movies the Drill Sargent gets the men up and at ’em by screaming “all right you fucking ladies! the enemy is laughing at you, you aren’t even soldiers, etc…etc…etc…” your basic mix of humiliation and homophobia and screaming. That mostly works (except of course in the movie Tribes) because the soldiers have no where to go until they wash out. Washing out, of course, is what happens to some percentage of people who can’t be motivated to get with the program. Voters can wash out really easily.
In reality voters are motivated by a whole lot of different stuff. Myself, I respond to calls to man the barricades, fight hard against the opponent, blah blah blah. Maybe this girl, whoever she was, would respond to a different mix of exhortation and explication than just “fuck you, bitch, for not supporting your team.” I know we are all frantic at the thought that some of our voters just don’t get that we need them. Maybe we ought to be working harder to find a way to make them understand just how much we need them. Just a thought.
Nick
@Dennis SGMM: youth vote wasn’t all that high in 2006, higher than 2002 and 2004, but not that high.
2008 was almost unprecedented.
Davis X. Machina
People don’t vote policy positions.
They vote tradition, they vote tribe, they vote narrative. They don’t vote policy. They only occasionally vote biography. And they don’t vote pocketbook until things are much, much worse than they are now.
The public loves the chaos GOP ideology is causing, and is about to ask for more of it at the polls. Because the chaos is good theater.
Liberals are fighting a theological battle with graphs. They’re trying to fix an economy, while the marginal voter needed to grow out the Democratic coalition to governing size has abandoned himself to the enjoyment of a morality play.
Via the elections, he or she is about to give it four stars. And why wouldn’t they? They get to be the hero/victim. People they hate — immigrants, hippies, gays, women, liberals, colored people — get to be the villains. And the narrative arc is as familiar and comfortable as their peculiar version of the Bible. Comes dressed up with a little sex, too.
The most secure parts of the Democratic coalition are those groups that are watching another, different, play: African-Americans. The GLBT community. Hispanics. Union households.
The marginal voter needed to grow out the Democratic coalition to governing size got a story to vote for in ’08 — a helluva story. People voted for Obama to show that we’re a big country, not just a strong one or a rich one. To show that we’re making progress. To show their kids they’re not old-fart bigot sellouts, and they can still stick it to the Man. Just because for once…
Now Obama’s not on the ticket, and while most of us have one beret, or scally cap, or Harris tweed fedora, or Greek fisherman’s had in the closet, few people ever buy a second ethnic hat.
The marginal voter needed to grow out the Democratic coalition to governing size this fall is still an elderly, non-union, middle-class, suburban white Protestant — and he or she will sit hungry in the seats to watch the GOP show, and feel privileged to have tickets.
aimai
@Davis X. Machina:
Davis X Machina,
I love that line “we’re fighting a theological battle with graphs.” That’s it exactly. Voters vote for the narrative. Always have, always will. There’s lots of good narrative on the Dem side but for some reason the master-narrativers–the Axelrods and the DNC and the other top line people have been unable to exploit those narratives. Personally, I don’t find anything difficult about saying to my friends and other voters “Be afraid–be very afraid of these fucking nutcases on the right: the neo nazis, the militias, the “hands off my medicare” gomers, the anti women anti abortionists, the racists, etc…” But at every turn the national dems have refused to nationalize the election or have undercut their own constituencies narratives by not trumpeting what they were doing loudly enough. Are there any parents in the US who don’t get that their children’s teachers would have been laid off and their schools gone to four hour weeks and the parents scrambling for child care without the stimulus? That’s a failure of marketing but its also a failure of theological imagination. Can’t fight a war for humanity without a Satan.
aimai
ChrisS
@aimai:
More fun to punch hippies … it’s more satisfying. There’s nothing more gratifying than pointing out the shortcomings of others. Mazel Tov~!
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
As bad as his homophobia is, I don’t think gays should be nearly as offended by Carl Paladino’s stereotyping as Italian-Americans should be. He hits every single offensive trope.
Shalimar
@r€nato: It’s not just the score that is depressing. It is that all the referees have been paid off with multi-million dollar homes. The fight has always been fixed, but it has been several hundred years since it has been fixed this blatantly and completely.
Comrade Darkness
Of course his speech, as part of running for an office of government, didn’t pick out one group for condemnation. He’s a Republican, and he’s totally against the government discriminating against the people.
/snark
Keith G
@Davis X. Machina: That’s a good observation of this election cycle.
Davis X. Machina
@aimai:
Some of those narratives cross-cut and interfere with each other. Hard-hats didn’t come out of nowhere. The New Left had real beefs with the Old Left….
Ah, coalitions. The fewer pieces, the easier run, and the less likely to fall to infighting. The GOP has Wall Street, God Street, Main Street, and not much else. (It used to have Goo-Goo’s too, but they died with Jacob Javits and Ed Brooke, who’s not actually dead.)
The Democratic coalition has always been more fissiparous, going back to the New Deal’s lefto-rightist (Unions and Dixiecrats? Hillman and Bilbo? What’s up with that?) roots. So its narratives cut across each other more often. But then a party with little common ground except being The Outs/The Wrongs would roll that way.
Stefan
What’s even more absurd is Paladino’s defense that he shouldn’t be held responsible for his beliefs because of his religion. Paladino said that “In my speech today to Orthodox Jewish leaders in New York City, I noted my opposition to gay marriage, inspired by my Catholic beliefs” while his spokesman denied that Paladino was anti-gay because “Carl Paladino is simply expresssing the views that he holds in his heart as a Catholic. Carl Paladino is not homophobic….”
So yes I’m bigoted, but that’s inspired by the bigoted teachings of a bigoted belief system I choose to belong to, so it’s OK and I shouldn’t suffer any consequences.
In that case, I’m not anti-Semitic, I’m simply expressing the views that I hold in my heart as a Nazi, inspired by my Nazi beliefs….
Larkspur
When it comes to the whole gay brainwashing thing, I’ll never forget Harvey Milk and John Briggs debating Prop 6 (making firing of gay teachers mandatory – way back in 1978):
God, I miss him.
(That quote is from the Harvey Milk Wikipedia entry, and Harvey Milk’s direct quote is from Randy Shilts’s book The Mayor of Castro Street. There’s also a clip in the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk.)
Stefan
I wonder if Paladino would allow someone the same “it’s OK because it’s my religion” exemption if it was a case of someone expressing the views that he holds in his heart as a Muslim, inspired by his Islamic beliefs?
No, wait, I don’t wonder at all. I think I already know the answer to that one.
Barb (formerly gex)
Goddamn am I sick of this shit. What the fuck is wrong with people. Not Carl, it’s easy to see his motivation: power and wealth. What the fuck is with the people who listen to leaders and decide that gay people are their biggest problem? It’s like they won’t even face the reality of their own lives and what is really going on in them. Just deflect it all, all your insecurities and fears, on gays.
Fuck it. They don’t want gays to exist. After a while I get really worn down by that and have an urge to oblige them. Watch them cheer the suicides of children. It’s fucking disgusting. And yet, Americans not only do that, but make themselves feel they are more moral than the rest of us.
Alice Blue
At least Paladino’s in New York. If he were in Georgia he would win in a landslide.
chopper
@MikeJ:
heh. it’s like last night’s simpsons. lisa may be brainy and passionless but she knows the best way to win the game.
Stefan
Now Obama’s not on the ticket, and while most of us have one beret, or scally cap, or Harris tweed fedora, or Greek fisherman’s had in the closet, few people ever buy a second ethnic hat.
Seriously, I own all four of those hats, along with two more scally caps, a Hamburg fisherman’s hat, several Panamas, and a Russian fur cap. I presume this says something about me….
Nick
@Stefan:
your bald and live in a cold climate?
kommrade reproductive vigor
Has Mr. Palomino claimed his 1st Am. rights are being violated yet?
geg6
@ChrisS:
Well, I certainly can’t speak for anyone else, but I only punch hippies when they seem intent on punching themselves and have no concern whatsoever that the punch often seems to slip right off and lands hardest on those who are innocent bystanders.
Stefan
your bald and live in a cold climate?
Nope, full head of hair. But good guess. I would have accepted either “you’re pretentious” or “you want to keep your options open” as winnig answers.
Mr Furious
@Nick:
@Stefan:
LOL. Nicely played. Both of you…
fucen tarmal
to quote pauly walnuts on the sopranos
hassidim but i don’t believe em
i think there is ample evidence to prove that there are nitwits across the country who are still in anti-gay denial like its 1984 and there is gay generated culture all around them, but they don’t know anything about that…i don’t think new york state has any more or any fewer such people. i think its pretty much a lot like the 27 percenters…their appeal is to, and amongst themselves…
what will we do when we don’t have o’donnell palamino etc to kick around any more?
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Stefan: I’ll take “gay and literate” for a hundred, Alex?
Poopyman
@geg6:
Matt Lauer is constitutionally incapable of giving a hard interview. Plus I’m sure he doesn’t want to get “taken out”. But Paladino’s answers to Lauer’s lame question were even lamer. Not surprising, since giving pretty much any response just digs the hole he’s in even deeper.
Anya
Why is he reading like someone handed him the text at that moment?
@ChrisS: Hippy punching does not apply here. The woman quoted was being idiotic. Pointing and making fun of her, does not constitute as Hippy Punching. My mommy is a true hippy and she’s a big supporter of the president. The immature attention seeing assholes like David Sirota, Jane Hamsher, Cenk Uygur and the like are not hippies and punching them repeatedly is a public service.
Davis X. Machina
@Stefan: Three berets — all with Euskadi-language labels, two scallies, a Costa Rican canvas campesino number, and a Tevye hat, from a cast of Fiddler.
But we’re just strange….
kay
It isn’t about gay teachers. Private schools can simply refuse to hire gay teachers.
It’s about public school efforts to promote some decency and civility in their (necessarily) diverse student population. That’s where the “brain washing” comes in.
In addition to the general horribleness of this person, I just find the timing of his rant incredibly offensive. The whole country is reading these freaking heartbreaking stories of kids getting bullied and then killing themselves. This big-mouth felt the need to spout off? Now?
Are conservatives incapable of any measure of self-restraint? Every random mean-spirited thought that enters their head has to be loudly expressed, no matter the collateral damage to actual people?
I mean, Christ. Give us a week to process the grief before we start with the hating.
Stefan
I’ll take “gay and literate” for a hundred, Alex?
One out of two!
kommrade reproductive vigor
Yep. Not to mention that last week, three guys (two of whom were teens) were kidnapped and tortured not far from where Palomino was running his fat ugly face. If the suspects claim they’re all good Catholic boys who were terrified of being brainwashed, I guess they’d get a pass from the Horse Whisperer.
Hell isn’t hot enough.
One of the objections to racial integration of schools was the pwecious children might not retain the appropriate level of loathing for brown people. Some might get so confused they grow up and MARRY one of the disgusting creatures!
SSDD.
chopper
@Stefan:
so you’re gay, no big whoop.
shortstop
aimai and kay, you’re both right about the “brainwashing” coming from the promotion of inclusiveness and tolerance in schools, not necessarily from gay teachers. But I think this is a dastardly duo of that line of thinking plus the winger belief that gays and lesbians in general (regardless of profession) are busily trying to “recruit” America’s youngsters.
And y’all’s hats are freaking me out.
Brachiator
Although it’s understandable that much of the reaction has been to Paladino’s homophobic remarks, much of his speech touches on Conservative Bigot’s Greatests Hits. Note how around the 4 minute mark, Paladino suggests that children of illegal immigrants should be denied public education, or that it is unfair to educate them while denying good American religious people their tuition tax credits. Because, of course, illegal immigrants are all social parasites sucking on the government teat.
Except that in pandering for the ultra-Orthodox vote, Paladino tries to squiggle past some ugly little truths. He trots out the image of poor children getting an education at religious schools, but while this sometimes true, some ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects are lobbying for tax breaks for schools that exclude all but the ultra-Orthodox. Paladino’s concern about tuition tax credits is a bait and switch that disguises his attempt to promise special tax groups for a religious group.
This also gets into the messy issue of separation of church and state, which has been deliberately muddied ever since Bush deliberately punched through the wall of separation in with his “compassionate conservativism nonsense.”
And as for the implied contrast between unworthy illegal immigrants and worthy religious folk, Paladino ignores the welfare fraud sometimes committed by Mormons and ultra-Orthodox groups. Among both groups, and extreme Mormon sects, this happens in part as the religious try to observe the “be fruitful and multiply” maxim, and end up violating the law as they try to take care of multiple children or families (in the case of some Mormons). And some ultra-Orthodox men believe that religious observance and scholarly study takes precedence over anything else, and so fall back on the support of the larger Jewish community and the welfare system. Here, some of the ultra-Orthodox are trying to import an Israeli model into the US.
And even other Israelis are debating the degree to which they must continue to subsidize the ultr-Orthodox.
Others here have commented on Paladino’s odious remarks about homosexuals, so I don’t have much more to add to this. I don’t think this is going to get much traction for him. Much of the country, even some Republicans, seem to have moved beyond this BS, and Paladino isn’t getting much support as he doubles down on his bigotry.
burnspbesq
@JGabriel:
I think you may have missed the point here.
When a Republican candidate for governor of New York is talking about tuition tax credits in front of an audience of ultra-Orthodox in Brooklyn, that’s not about college, it’s about K through 12.
I understand, and sympathize to an extent with, people who live in cities where the public schools suck and aren’t willing to see their kids be collateral damage in the school reform wars. At the same time, however, for some communities it’s less about school quality than it is about trying to get public subsidies to maintain a distinct and insular culture, and to those communities I say, “look, your religious schools are 501(c)(3)s, and that’s all the public subsidy I’m willing to give.”
Not to mention that if we do choose to go down that road, any such benefit should be means-tested. Mr. Ultra-Orthodox, if you can afford four first-class tickets on the afternoon flight from LAX to JFK for your family, your hand should not be in my pocket looking for money to pay for your kids’ yeshiva.
Jay
Man. Who’s advising Paladino, Daniel Lapin?
Bill Murray
@geg6: well it’s good to see you doing your part to make sure she doesn’t show up. Because nothing gets people out to vote like telling them to fuck off
chopper
@Bill Murray:
yeah, if only he’d spend ungodly gobs of his free time trying in vain to preach to stubborn morons. this is all his fault.
kay
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
I was just bawling reading about that kid in NJ. His face. Ack. I can’t stand it. Then there were three dead in the past year in one school in Ohio, various reasons for bullying them.
Conservatives missed that whole thing? They’re going to exploit that?
Just repulsive.
asiangrrlMN
Yeah, well, my opposition to Carl Paladino is based on MY religion which is “Fuck all the haters.” Hater.
Midnight Marauder
@kay:
That’s the new paradigm conservatives have constructed, essentially. You learn to grieve AND hate at the same time.
Stefan
It isn’t about gay teachers. Private schools can simply refuse to hire gay teachers.
Exactly. Just like the Catholic Church doesn’t hire gay priests….
henqiguai
@kay(#94):
This assumes there’s a capacity for empathy with any member of an ‘out’ group; i.e. one of ‘those’, not of my group. Not seeing a whole lot of empathic outreach from the American Right, these days.