An Open Letter To Alec Baldwin

Dear Alec Baldwin,

You’ve done it again and now I’m officially done with you. No more am I thinking that you’re smart and witty and funny; no more am I feeling sorry for you that the paparazzi get too close to you. For now, you’re simply a bully with a foul mouth and a propensity for homophobic slurs.

But still, I’d like an explanation please, for why, when you’re walking down a street with your wife and child, being accosted by paparazzi, you don’t simply ignore them? I mean, I don’t deal with paparazzi in my daily life, but even I know they’re out for a “money shot” and you and your wife out for a stroll isn’t that; but you hurling anti-gay epithets, all red-faced and angry, fists up and spitting, is the money shot they’re after, so they provoke you, and you let them.

That’s on you. And it’s on you that you decided to call that photographer a ‘c**ksucking fag’ because, to you apparently, being called gay, or some kind of slur, is the worst thing you can be called. Way to feed into stereotypes. For someone who pretends to be so highly educated and well-spoken on the issues, for you to resort to that kind of name-calling is childish, stupid, offensive, and low.

And please stay off Twitter and off the Huffington Post and stay away from microphones so I can avoid reading and seeing and hearing the myriad of excuses you’re spewing; I can't with you any more.

Don’t Tweet this:

"Anti-gay slurs are wrong. They not only offend, but threaten hard fought tolerance of LGBT rights...I'm grateful to all of the ppl I meet + hear from who recognize that I would never say something to offend my friends in the gay community...1-Rich Ferraro from @glaad informs me that c'sucker is an anti-gay epithet. In which case I apologize and will retire it from my vocabulary."

I didn’t need to hear from anyone that calling someone a c**ksucker was anti-gay. I knew that already, but you seemed to miss that lesson somehow. That's on you.

And please stop trying to spin it. What’s that? You say you didn’t say "fag" or "faggot"? Oh, you want us to believe that you said ‘c**ksucking’ but you didn’t say fag? You want us to believe that you said ‘c**ksucking fathead’? Really, Alec Baldwin? Really? if that's true, then I ask you to explain again why, in yet another statement, you said this:

"I think it is important to note, in light of recent events, a couple of clarifications. One is that I never used the word faggot in the tape recording being offered as evidence against me. What word is said right after the other choice word I use is unclear. But I can assure you, with complete confidence, that a direct homophobic slur (or indirect one for that matter) is not spoken.”

How can you not remember what you said?You remember 'c**ksucking'; how can you not remember the very next word? But, if you can’t remember and everyone else seems to agree you said fag then maybe you said it but blocked it out because, well, it’s your go-to comeback to people who piss you off. I can't with you.

But then, to make matters worse, and it did, you trot out your gay hairdresser to avow that you are a nice man and not a homophobe because you let him cut your hair? That’s akin to a slave-owner saying he has nothing against black people because he lets them serve dinner in the big house. It’s offensive and stupid and lame, even for you.

And you actually put your hairdresser in front of a camera and asked him, point-blank, "Am I a homophobe?" That doesn’t help — that smacks of the old racist saying, Some of my best friends are black. It’s lame and stupid and offensive and wrong and the fact that you don’t get that means more than any hairdresser can say.

And then to have your hairdresser say this:

"I don’t think he’s homophobic. I don’t at all. Whenever he is in here, we are always talking and cutting hair. He booked an appointment for today, he always does and he is a good tipper.”

Wow, Alec Baldwin. You talk to your hairdresser and tip him a lot so you can’t be a bigot? I can’t with the hairdresser either; I just can’t. And I can’t with you.

You call yourself an advocate for marriage equality and for LGBT rights but this is the second time — that we know about — where you’ve resorted to bigoted anti-gay slurs. But you say you aren’t a homophobe because you have a gay hairdresser and gay friends and give money to “gay” causes. Well, you can give all the money you want to so-called “gay” causes but it’s your words that speak louder than your checkbook. I just can’t with you any longer.

I’m reminded of Mel Gibson and his drunken anti-Semitic rant. His excuse was the liquor, yours is anger. You resort to these types of words when angry and I think you need to deal with that before you raise your baby daughter in a household where the kinds of words you use are acceptable when you’re angry, as long as you do the Mea Culpa Tour afterwards. Is that the lesson you want to give a child? What kind of lesson is that? How does anyone learn from that? And how will you learn, because you’re never really held accountable for your words.

Oh sure, MSNBC — after much prodding, I assume — has suspended your show for a week or two. Big deal. It’s as meaningless as when you issued this statement:

"I did not intend to hurt or offend anyone with my choice of words, but clearly I have—and for that I am deeply sorry. Words are important. I understand that and will choose mine with great care going forward. “

We’ve heard that before, after that episode earlier this year where you used Twitter to spread your homophobia, calling a reporter a “toxic queen” and threatening to shove your foot up his ass, but were afraid he might like it. You said then that you were sorry; you said then that you’d do better. You haven’t; you can’t; I can’t with you.

And please, please, stop saying that you did this to protect your family. Hurling a homophobic epithets isn’t’ protecting your family. If you wanted to protect them, you’d remove them from the situation; you’d go home; you’d walk down another street. You’d move, if it’s that bad. But, again, it’s bad because all those photographers know that you’re gonna snap, and they follow you and taunt you, waiting for it; and you let them. You let them.

I can’t with you. When we live in a world where every single day young kids are being bullied to the point of death by people using the same words as you, I can’t; I just can’t. You think you’re protecting your family, but all you’re doing is perpetuating a stereotype; you're spreading the kind of hate that filters down to a young boy on a playground being called those same derogatory names who ends up taking his own life. And the person who caused that will undoubtedly say, I didn’t know my words could hurt.

They can; they do.

And so, Alec Baldwin, I can’t with you. I can’t watch you on TV; I can’t watch your commercials; I’ll avoid your movies; and I will use my words by writing to Capital One and to MSNBC and to anyone else and tell them I just can’t with them either as long as they choose to use a homophobe as their spokesman.

That I can do.