Number 1 Bigot of the Year Award 2013: Vladimir Putin

Not Gay At All!

Bigot of the Year is always troublesome for me. I confess, I do not enjoy looking at and writing about bigots. It weighs heavy on my heart the plethora of bigots to choose from each year. This year was a particularly difficult choice, for many bigots could have easily taken first spot. I reflect back on some of the more nefarious BWA, such as: Paula Deen, Ted Cruz, and of course (somewhat ironically, given this year’s Hero!) the United States Supreme Court for basically eliminating the 1964 Voter Rights Act.

One figure managed to rise above (or is that sink below?) the rest: this year’s Bigot of the Year Award goes to Vladimir Putin. As the leader of one of the world’s most powerful nations, Putin’s aggressive support for Russia’s new “Gay Propaganda” law makes him one of the worst human rights violators alive today. The climate of violence in which Russian LGBT folk live is horrific. That Putin would enshrine this bigotry into law and then defend it as a necessary step is unconscionable. As usual, people who are so focused on the LGBT community and so actively violent against our community make me wonder what their own issues/struggles are around being gay.

Putin’s actions are a direct lift from the Nazi playbook, demonizing an unpopular minority to bolster his political standing. Each day he is in office is served on the backs of millions of LGBT Russians. Insisting that he will enforce these evil laws even for visiting diplomats and athletes as his nation hosts the Winter Olympics is vile icing on his cake of hate.

Here’s to French President Hollande for refusing to attend the games and to President Obama for sending an openly gay delegation. We must stand in solidarity with our Russian brothers and sisters and refuse to bow to this ghastly oppression.

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Number 1 Bigot of the Year 2012: National Rifle Association

Number 1 Bigot of 2012

This year’s nominations for Bigot of the Year were pretty remarkable, as you have no doubt noticed over the past few days. Thanks again go to all the TSM readers who took the time to recommend their choices for awful behavior and social injustice. It was a bit of a surprise with all those great nominations to have someone come out of nowhere and grab the top spot. With the insane rantings of its VP Wayne LaPierre and its manic worship at the altar of firearms in the wake of Sandy Hook, however, the NRA managed to do just that.

The shooting tragedy in Newtown was among the worst in U.S. history. Children of 6 and 7 were being buried as LaPierre broke the NRA silence and made his now infamous speech.

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

How about not letting the “bad guy” have a gun whose only purpose is to destroy human flesh? How about really enforcing the lamentably weak gun laws we already have? How about not using racism and class warfare to scare people into thinking they need to carry a gun wherever they go?

The NRA’s general behavior as one of the largest and most feared lobbying organizations was bad enough. Over the past year or so, however, they’ve upped the ante significantly. Apparently fearing action in the courts that might result in support for reasonable gun laws, the NRA has begun meddling in judicial appointments. Justices Kagan and Sotomayor are the first two ever “rated” by the organization, clearly targeting votes in their favor as being anti-gun, something many Senators fear. NRA operatives are also working hard to scuttle an arms trade treaty in the U.N.

They’ve also launched a sister organization, the American Silencer Association, to push sales of the one legal firearm enhancement that might have made Adam Lanza’s attack more devastating. The sales pitch? Silencers make guns safer for children’s hearing. Really.

Congratulations, NRA leaders. You’ve demonstrated such lack of compassion and judgment that LaPierre was billed on the New York Daily News as the “Craziest Man On Earth.” Sadly, far too many in power listen to the kind of crazy his money buys.

Dishonorable mention goes to the NRA’s partners in tastelessness. Mike Huckabee already came in at #5 for the year, partly on the strength of his screed about putting “God back in schools” to avoid another Sandy Hook. The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer gets a nod for similar words, delivered in his own inimitable crazed style. Last but by no means least, the National Review for its misogynistic editorial that just having more men in schools would butch them up enough to stop potential killers. Let’s try to learn from the real lessons of Sandy Hook, and not from these ranters and opportunists.  Now is the time to look at gun control, racial profiling, and angry white men.

Number 2 Bigot of the Year 2012: Republican Party Platform

Number 2 Bigot of 2012

There are those who claim that a party platform is just a bunch of words to rally the faithful and that what matters is each candidate. To them I say, words matter. Candidates who stand up under a party banner should note what they claim to stand for. This year, the Republican party approved a rancid Tea-soaked platform that slid even further backward into a viciously white, male, heterosexist hierarchy. With that being said, I still refuse to paint all Republicans with this tea stained brush.

It should come as little surprise that the platform was rabidly anti-gay. FRC President Tony Perkins was allowed to draft language that not only called for a national one-man-one-woman amendment but targeted all the progress made during the Obama administration for dismantling.

The War on Women showed up in the guise of a personhood amendment, the most egregious type of attack on reproductive choice. Trampling freedom of religion, the platform trumpeted the farthest right of so-called christian values, elevating the “rights” of a random assemblage of cells over even the life of the mother. How very pro-life THAT is–protect the fetus at all cost, but damn the mother and the child after birth.

The platform also attacked health care and called for dismantling the Affordable Care Act without proposing any alternative. It painted immigrants as greedy illegals, celebrating Arizona and Alabama-style immigration laws and demanding intrusive bureaucracies to force companies to investigate all potential employees. How’s that for smaller government?

The hypocritical, anti-everyone — unless they’re white, rich, christian, heterosexual men — document was a shocker even for the 21st Century GOP. Sadly, the candidates picked up the hateful flag and marched.

Dishonorable mention goes to four particularly loathsome GOP men. Mitt Romney leads the list, railing against the LGBT community, women, and the poor while pretending to tack to the center. His cruel detachment and willingness to do anything to win make him a perfect exemplar of this decaying party. His running mate, Paul Ryan, gets special notice for his Randian budget plans, a real “I’ve got mine so go to Hell” approach to governance.

Two angry men round out the list. Regular TSM bigot winner Allen West leaves office in a fit of petulance. Despite his clear loss, he prepared to waste thousands of dollars and ignore election law to try to change the results. Fortunately, he was so nuts that even in Florida he couldn’t make the case. Sen John McCain (R – Pleistocene) rounds out the list. His regular angry rants hit a new low when he targeted U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. He hypocritically attacked her integrity — after supporting Sarah (Gun) Palin and  Conoleezza Rice and her lying ways years earlier — in a blatant move to get John Kerry out of the Senate and give his mini-me Scott Brown another shot. What a sad, nasty creature our McCain (Gollum) is.

Number 3 Bigot of the Year 2012: GOP Rape Apologists

Number 3 Bigots of 2012

There were plenty of examples of the Republican War on Women in 2012, ranging from battles over contraception to the stunning failure to renew the bipartisan Violence Against Women Act. Nothing was quite so vile, however, as the shockingly repeated misogyny regarding rape. No fewer than five candidates for Federal office said something appalling about rape victims, often relating to shutting down a woman’s right to choose.  For a party that consistently demonstrated how much it HATES women, the GOP was determined to own every vagina in the land.

The most famous are Senate wannabes Todd Akin (MO) and Richard Mourdock (IN). Let’s take a quick look at the whole fool’s gallery.

• “The right approach is to accept this horribly created, in the sense of rape, […] gift of human life and accept what God is giving to you.” Presidential candidate Rick Santorum (PA), Jan. 20
• “If it’s an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room; I would give them a shot of estrogen.” Rep. and Presidential candidate Ron Paul (TX), Feb. 3
• “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down.” Senate candidate Todd Akin (MO), Aug. 20
• “It was really an issue of the Catholic church being forced to offer those pills if the person came in with an emergency rape.” Senate candidate Linda McMahon (CT), Oct. 15
• “When life begins with that horrible situation of rape, that is something that God intended to happen.” Senate candidate Richard Mourdock (IN), Oct. 23

Sadly,the media largely overlooked the first two, but Akin’s bizarre comment went viral and sunk his nearly sure thing candidacy. The GOP tried to get him out of the race, but he stayed put. With all their hopes for the Senate evaporating, the GOP leadership stuck by Mourdock. That included another lovely “gift from God” quote from Sen. John Cornyn (TX) and an endorsement from Mitt Romney. Happily for the nation, sensible voters said no to false KKKristianity and blatant misogyny.

Dishonorable mention for misogyny even beyond the GOP standard goes to radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh. Not content to rail against the contraceptive provisions in the Affordable Care Act, he targeted Sandra Fluke, a woman testifying before Congress about the need for contraceptive coverage. Limbaugh called her a slut and raved about contraception in a remarkably ignorant way, even for him. He devoted days of his show to the topic, resulting in a costly backlash as sponsors fled from his toxic spew.

Number 4 Bigot of the Year 2012: The Catholic Church

Number 4 Bigot of 2012

Regular TSM readers know that I have real suspicion of organized religion and its role in privileging dominant forces in the power structure, thus sustaining a white, heteronormative discourse. While some denominations have inched toward inclusion and social justice, the Catholic church leadership of the 21st Century has abandoned its traditions of caring in favor of narrow political dogma and oppression–completely abandoning any dedication to social justice. This year, the hate filled voices of Pope Benedict XVI and his bishops have proved that more loudly than ever.

Not content to stick with centuries old traditions of misogyny and homophobia, the bishops danced a cruel jig across the lines of church and state, issuing proclamations about candidates and electoral issues willy nilly. Some, like Newark Archbishop John Myers, went so far as to suggest that priests refuse communion to parishioners who support marriage equality, reproductive choice, or progressive candidates–my, Who Would Jesus Hate?

The church spent the year emptying its venomous purse as well. The single largest contributor to anti-equality campaigns in the four states that voted on marriage equality this fall was the Catholic Church. It spent over $2 MILLION fighting fairness. When added to money contributed by the Catholic group Knights of Columbus and the National Organization for Marriage, a church ally that uses local congregations to raise funds, Catholic contributions exceeded $6 million. How much poverty could that fight? How many lives could have been saved instead of harmed?

Just to add insult to injury, the Pope used his biggest speech of the year, the Christmas Message, to spew a little more homophobia and transphobia.

There is no denying the crisis that threatens it (the family) to its foundations — especially in the Western world. When such commitment is repudiated, the key figures of human existence likewise vanish: father, mother, child — essential elements of the experience of being human are lost.

Again I ask, who would Jesus hate?  I don’t want to dismiss the progressive Catholics that exist, but I feel it necessary to remind everyone that every time you tithe, a portion of that tithe goes to Rome and the Pope.

Sadly, there are a number of homophobia dishonorable mentions this year. High on the list, nearly taking the crown from Benedict’s head, is the Boy Scouts of America, which pretended to consider its anti-gay policies and then doubled down on them. Fake researcher Mark Regnerus and his “gay families are harmful” study funded by NOM and its Catholic allies wraps up this unholy trinity in a foul shroud.

Additional dishonorable mention goes to NOM itself and to the ironically named Family Research Council. Both spent huge amounts of time and energy spewing homophobia and pretending to offer “balanced” views to common sense positions of equality. Happily, they lost just about every issue they supported.  So much fear, misogyny, and homophobia.  I guess it is true, the squeaky wheel (Pope Benny the Rat) wants the grease.

Number 5 Bigot of the Year 2012: Mike Huckabee

Number 5 Bigot of 2012

Let’s start this year’s Bigot of the Year awards with a big thank you to all the readers who submitted nominations. We had nearly 20 well-qualified horrors make the short list, many with multiple recommendations. After careful consideration, TSM is ready to roll out the bottom five! I’ve paid special attention to those people and organizations with significant power, privilege, and influence and abuse it to oppress their fellow human beings.

At number 5, we have one of the newest entrants into Hate Radio. Since leaving the Arkansas governor’s mansion in 2007, Mike Huckabee has been a thorn in reasonable America’s side. A bloviating gasbag of toxic opinions, he has flirted with other political aspirations, always deciding instead to earn big bucks for spewing bile and demeaning as many groups of Americans as possible. In less than a year on the air with his own show, Huckabee has been the go-to place for certified hate groups like the Family Research Council to peddle their noxious ideas and work to sustain a white hetero supremacist paradigm.

Huckabee has plenty of those on his own as well. He was the creator of Chik-Fil-A Day, rewarding the sawdust sandwich empire for its homophobia and anti-equality stands. He lashed into  President Obama for supporting marriage equality. He was an early supporter of Todd Akin after his horrific rape comments. He loves to blame the LGBT community for every disaster that strikes. Pushing him over the top of his fellow “personalities” were his comments in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy. Huckabee was the first and loudest to propose that school prayer and teaching “intelligent design” would have prevented the shootings. What a charm-free ball of crazy!

Dishonorable mention at #5 goes to five old straight white guys who burned up huge amounts of money trying to meddle with this year’s elections. Karl “0% Success Rate” Rove, Sheldon “It’s MY Money” Adelson, David and Charles “Pour the Tea” Koch, and Donald “Birther #1”  Racist Trump poured hundreds of millions of dollars into post-Citizens United Super PACs, pushing the farthest right agendas. Perhaps we should be grateful that they proved that even that much money can’t buy success, but just imagine all the good they could have done if they had invested in social justice rather than selfish arrogance…

Call For Nominations: Hero and Bigot of the Year.

Hero and Bigot of 2011

As we grow near to the end of the calendar year, TSM is getting ready to post the Hero of the Year Award and the Bigot of the Year Award.  As usual, we are calling for nominations.

Our Hero is a person that has fought for civil rights and social justice and has demonstrated a great amount of courage over the course of this past year, such as Elizabeth Warren who earned last year’s Hero of the Year Award. The person nominated for this honor should be someone who stands in solidarity with marginalized communities and stands up for the rights of the LGBT community, for women, and for people of color.

Our Bigot is the person who has consistently demonstrated behavior that works against civil rights and social justice. This person actively practices homophobia, misogyny, and classism.  John Boehner certainly earned this dishonorable award last year as he abused his power in the house and led the team of obstructionists.

Sadly, we have had a year chock full of bigots–an embarrassment of riches, so to speak.

TSM readers, chime in and let us know if you are willing to be thanked publicly for your nomination.

Warm regards and I stand in solidarity with marginalized populations,

Michael

Number 1 Bigot of the Year Award 2011: John Boehner

Number 1 Bigot of 2011

For those that have been following TSM for any amount of time, it should come as no surprise that Mr. Fake and Bake, crocodile tears, Mr. 1%, John Boehner, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, earns the most dubious honor of the Number 1 Bigot of the Year for 2011.

The congressman from Ohio has consistently demonstrated an abuse of power from a wealthy white heterosexual that rivals some of the super rich white boys on the Supreme Court.  Boehner’s hypocrisy, double standards, misogyny, and homophobia have set his legacy of hate and abuse of power in history!  Rather than working for the American people to balance the budget and get out of a deficit, the ubiquitous obstructionist Boehner said, “we will not raise taxes,” as he was working tirelessly to protect the incomes of the top 1% of Americans–damn the rest of the country.

Yet, while operating out of a deficit, Boehner is spending tax payer dollars to defend discrimination by hiring an attorney to defend DOMA–yes, we must be fearful of the Gay Agenda!  

Pandering to the outer fringe of his party rather than brokering meaningful compromise (how sad is it when you can make Sen. Mitch McConnell look reasonable?) he has made 2011 the year of the do-nothing Congress. Let us hope that his recent capitulation on the payroll tax holiday is the beginning of his downfall–Boehner, another rancid tea bag.

Flashback  2010: The Bigot of 2010 was John McCain.

Number 4 Bigot of the Year Award 2011: Corporate America

Number 4 Bigot of 2011

Corporate America received more than two dozen nominations from TSM readers as Bigot of the Year. 2011 was a particularly nasty and ugly year to witness how corporations are willing to discriminate based on gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender conformity.  Here were some of the top offenders of 2010: Target and its significant donation to key anti-gay politicians that profit from being homophobic and anti-woman; Gold’s Gym funding the misogynistic and homophobic Karl Rove; Walmart holding such enormous political clout as a corporation that even the United States Supreme Court refused to heard the collective voices of millions of women who faced and continue to face discrimination; and of course Lowe’s which helps to perpetuate the vile myth that Muslims should be feared and can’t be trusted.  Yes, these are just a few of the corporations that are lumped together as a cancerous mass that have earned the dubious honor of the number 4 Bigot of the Year Award.

Flashback 2010: The Number 4 Bigot of 2010 was the ever charm free Family Research Council.

Number 5 Bigot of the Year Award 2011: “Celebrities” Behaving Badly

Number 5 Bigot of 2011

What a year! Sadly, 2011 was rife with so-called celebrities using their marginal fame to rail against the rights and dignity of their fellow humans. The majority of these over-compensated blowhards used their platforms to practice homophobia and misogyny. The summer was particularly loaded with such stories, giving us no fewer than six bigots of the week. The abusers ranged from Adam Carolla’s homophobic rants to Damali Keith’s insulting coverage of Glee on Faux News, from David Tyree’s anti-gay screed to rappers Tyler the Creator and Cee-Lo accusing anyone offended by their talentless bloviating of being gay.

Perhaps the champ was hypothetical comedian Tracy Morgan, whose virulently homophobic and misogynistic performance in Nashville last June threatened to overwhelm his career. It also provided an opportunity for others to show their cowardice or their courage. Jeers to 30 Rock creator and co-star Tina Fey for defending Morgan. Comedian Chris Rock was a mixed bag, initially defending Morgan from a comedy-can-be-edgy platform and then wisely backing down when he looked at the content more closely. Cheers to Wanda Sykes, who wittily dismantled Morgan’s ranting, exposing hate for what it is.

Celebrities derive their fame, money, and power from the people who watch and pay them. We must hold them accountable when they abuse that power to oppress anyone.

FLASHBACK: The 2010 #5 Bigot of the Year was the Tea Party for spewing its toxicity into our national dialogue.