I'm glad Mel Gibson finally revealed himself as an anti-Semite.

Sapphocrat

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Mon Jul-31-06 04:27 PM
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I'm glad Mel Gibson finally revealed himself as an anti-Semite.

(Yes, this is a "gay" post. Bear with me.)

Granted, we've known all along that Mel Gibson has no love for Jews, but now he's finally confirmed everything everyone ever suspected, in a way no one can deny.

(Memo to Mel: Nobody's buying your half-assed non-apology: "I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable." Don't give me that. Everyone knows booze only loosens inhibitions, and that's when one's real thoughts and feelings break through. Haven't you ever heard the old saying? "When the drink goes in, the truth comes out.")

So I'm glad Gibson said all those nasty things to the cops, and I'm glad somebody leaked the unredacted police report. I'm glad people are finally seeing his true colors.

I have always detested everything Mel Gibson has ever stood for (don't anyone try to convince me he's a good Catholic; as a recovering Rosary-rattler myself, I'm still a better Catholic now than he's ever been), and it positively galls me to see people making him even richer with every movie ticket and DVD purchase they make. I'd rather sit through a week-long Arnold Schwarzenegger filmfest than ever again lay eyes on that hateful, homophobic, Jew-hating, pseudo-Australian torture fetishist. (Yes, I boycott Schwarzenegger, too, even though Ah-nold, despite his incurable misogyny and still too-close-for-comfort ties to Nazism, is practically palatable compared to Gibson.)

I hope this kills Gibson's career. I don't expect it will, but I hope it does. No, I'm really not experiencing Schadenfreude; more than anything else, I feel relief that his thinly-disguised hatred of Jews is finally out in the open, and people can no longer make excuses for him.

Now, here's the thing: I'm also sad and angry that this is what it took to disgrace him.

Allow me to digress.

We all know who Fred Phelps is. And we all know that psychotic freak and his equally psychotic family have been picketing the funerals of gay people since the early 1990s -- and were picketing gay gatherings since at least 1991. (And does anybody remember the "monument" he wanted to erect in Casper, WY, stating that Matthew Shepard was roasting in hell for being gay?)

But very few outside the gay community cared much about what Phelps was doing until he and his deluded spawn started picketing the funerals of U.S. soldiers (the "logic" being that God is killing G.I.'s in Iraq because America is too lenient with us nasty fags & dykes).

Only then did our elected representatives step in and decide to put a stop to such demonstrations.*

AP, 2/6/06: "Legislation is being considered in at least 14 states, and several of the bills moving quickly, with backing from legislative leaders and governors.

"'We’re not proposing to silence the speech of the Westboro Baptist Church, as offensive as most of us find that,' said Kansas Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, a Republican. Instead, he said, he is trying to achieve a balance that respects 'the rights of families to bury their dead in peace.'"

BBC, 5/26/06: "On Wednesday, Congress approved legislation barring demonstrators from disrupting military funerals at national cemeteries. ...

"So far, nine states have approved laws that impose restrictions on demonstrations at funerals and burials. More than 20 other states are considering similar legislation.

"The Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act passed by both houses of Congress on Wednesday now only needs President George W Bush's signature.

"It would bar protests within 90 metres (300 feet) of the entrance of national cemeteries, including Arlington, outside Washington DC, and within 45 metres (150 feet) of a road into the cemetery from an hour before to an hour after a funeral."

I think by now you know what I'm about to say: Why didn't anyone care when Phelps' filth was limited to gay funerals?

Why didn't anyone in a position of power "respect the rights of families to bury their dead in peace" when the dead were just a bunch of fags?**

And so we turn to Mel Gibson and his now-undeniable anti-semitism -- and to my next obvious question:

Why didn't anyone care that Gibson has a history of verbally bashing gay people?

Why did it take an attack on Jews to make people see that he's a hater?

Believe me, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to personally deliver a hard kick in the nuts to anyone who says, "Fucking Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."

But in truth, that's the worst thing he's ever said openly about Jews -- despite his apologia for his Holocaust-denying father, despite his cinematic portrayal of Jews in "Passion of the Christ" as (to paraphrase Loretta Haggers in "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman") "the people what killed our Lord," despite all the dodging, the weaving, the ducking.

Oh, it's horrible, what he said; there's no denying that. And he's never said anything like "Fucking fags... The queers are responsible for all the AIDS in the world."

But there's also no denying that Gibson is a homophobe of the first water, and always has been.

Now, listen: I am not playing the "my persecution is worse than yours" victim game. As far as I'm concerned, all persecution is equal; when you're the one getting lynched, or burned at the stake, or herded into a gas chamber, your victimhood is 100%. And it doesn't matter if you're gay, or Jewish, or black, or even an Australian in the wrong place at the wrong time when a bomb goes off in an Indonesian pub. You're just as dead as everyone else, and your family is just as destroyed as any other.

You could argue that Jewish persecution has occurred on a larger scale, and you'd be right; e.g., the Nazis gassed some 6 million Jews, and "only" about a million male homosexuals. But persecution is persecution, and dead is dead is dead.

Matt Shepard is just as dead as Anne Frank.

Anne Frank is just as dead as Emmett Till.

Emmett Till is just as dead as Brandon Teena.

And only by the grace of God (or providence) is that 17-year-old Texas boy not as dead as any of them.

Dead is dead is dead.

And hate is hate is hate. And while I can fathom the many reasons for it, I don't think I'll ever be able to accept the fact that the general public just doesn't care much (or at all) when it's the queers who are being bashed, murdered, or verbally assaulted.

Think I'm making too much of this? Fair enough. Let's play the old substitution game: Read the the following statements below, and imagine the speaker is talking about Jews instead of gay people:

"They take it up the ass." (pointing to his own ass) "This is only for taking a shit."

"(W)ith this look, who's going to think I'm gay? It would be hard to take me for someone like that."

"Do I sound like a homosexual? Do I talk like them? Do I move like them?"

(on the above remarks) "I don't think there's an apology necessary, and I'm certainly not giving one. ... If someone wants my opinion, I'll give it. What, am I supposed to lie to them?"

(after GLAAD brought his homophobia to light) "I've been chased by automobiles doing dangerous things on the freeway. People have tried to spit on me. It's made me totally paranoid."

(claiming he had been confronted by a "gay group") "They had signs, they were screaming and frothing at the mouth -- pure hatred. It was wild."

Those are all public statements by Mel Gibson over the years -- when he wasn't drunk.

And I haven't even touched on the way "Braveheart" portrays Edward II as an evil, fey bitch, or the way Eddie's alleged lover was thrown out a window (which is total fiction), or the way Gibson de-gayed "Man without a Face," or his mincing-faggot "gay barber" schtick in "Bird on a Wire," or.....

But nobody -- besides us uppity homos and our loved ones -- gets upset about things like that. It takes open attacks on Jews (and, in Phelps' case, dead soldiers) for the general public to experience genuine outrage.

In the end, I'm always glad to see any 'phobe, of any stripe, brought down, and I can even be grateful regardless of the means it takes to make it happen.

I just wish that the rest of the world would listen to us when we keep trying to tell them: "This guy is mad. This guy is a hater. This guy may be dangerous."

I grow weary of saying "I told you so." And I don't get any satisfaction out of being right.

- - -

Thanks for listening. I almost posted this in GD, but realized that, what with the current tension in there, I'd doubtless get flamed for "diminishing" Jewish persecution, or some such thing.

But I had to rant.

- - -

* I don't agree with anti-picketing laws. I do believe such laws violate one's First Amendment rights. I'm not sure how I feel about laws that keep protesters in a "free speech zone," away from the funeral itself, but if pressed, I would probably be against that too.

I told an ACLU lawyer, face to face, last week: "You know what really pisses me off about the ACLU? That I have to agree with you for going to bat for Fred Phelps. No matter how much I hate him, you're right to do it."

I feel the same way about free speech, now matter how vile.

** To be fair, Kansas City, MO, did pass a "funeral picketing" law in 1993, in direct response to Phelps' actions. However, that doesn't surprise me; Phelps was already infamous for harrassing public officials, filing countless frivolous lawsuits, and many other non-anti-gay incidents -- and Phelps & Co. were right in KC's backyard. My guess is that the anti-picketing law had little to do with protecting gay people, and was simply about the only way anybody could legally get back at Phelps for being such a pain in the ass.