Dueling Asshats Of The Week: You Make The Call

Sometimes we have an overflow of ISBL Asshat of the Week candidates but one seems just a tad more asshatted and he, or she, takes the crown, er, ball cap. But this week I’ve a bit of a conundrum; I’ve got two people that deserve to be called Asshat of the Week—and we could have a tie—but maybe y’all can help pick a winner.

Let’s begin …

I’m not a young gay — by any stretch of the imagination — and I am not, yet, an old gay, but, I remember when I was a wee queerling, back in the day, when some of The Gays would discuss wanting to be married; and this was in the days when the mere idea was a ludicrous one, there was no Massachusetts, no Iowa, no thing; The Gays didn’t get legally married anywhere, anytime, anyplace, ever.

And I remember some of The Gays who were adamantly opposed to marriage equality because they didn’t want The Gays to fall into the same kinds of categories as The Straights; being gay was outside the norm and some of us, er, them, didn’t want to be “normal.”

So, I kinda understood how they felt, and why they felt that way, but in the years in between then and now, I think many of The Gays have come to see that we want to be treated like everyone else; to have that choice; we want to marry, or not marry, like everyone else. And now I think that many of The Gays, who may not wish to fall into some kind of traditional set-up of spouse–and-spouse, still want the chance to choose that role for themselves.

So I was stunned, stunned I say — and I’m saying that like cartoon rooster Foghorn Leghorn ... Stunned! Stunned I say! — to hear about Hawaii State Representative, openly lesbian, and a Democrat, Jo Jordan voting against marriage equality in her state.

Yes, a gay woman has voted against the right to be treated equally under the law and she will forever be a footnote in LGBT History as the first known openly gay lawmaker to vote against marriage equality.

That’s sad, and bad, though the good news is that, despite her vote, Hawaiian lawmakers have approved Marriage Equality in the House, and now it goes back to the Senate for approval, and if passed — and I say if when it really looks like when — Governor Neil Abercrombie will sign it into law.

Jo Jordan said she set aside her personal beliefs when she listened to the five days of testimony — much of it anti-equality — during a joint committee hearing, and while she says that perhaps up to 75% of her constituents favor marriage equality she voted No.

And then muttered something about not everyone feeling like they have been given a chance to participate in the process which, I think, means she wants the majority to vote on the rights of the minority. I think she’s trying to play both sides against the middle so she can keep her job, and I hope the good people of Hawaii see through it and vote her out.

I mean, she’s gay, and she doesn’t want equality for The Gays; she says that three-quarters of Hawaiians want marriage equality but she wants everyone to be heard. It makes no sense to me. She makes no sense to me. She has said, since coming down against equality, that "Nobody's going to beat me up. Nobody's going to throw me out of my [LGBT] community."

Well, you’re right there, Jo. We can’t throw you out of the LGBT community but we can find your reasons, or lack of reasons, for voting against equality enough to hopefully throw you out of office, which is why I nominate you for ISBL Asshat of the week, unless ……

Y’all wanna go ahead and give the award to former South Carolina — dear God, why are there so many asshats in my state — Todd Kincannon who Tweeted this week:

Yes, camps. And I’m not thinking he means a fun summer camp with canoe races and bonfires, I suspect he means a Concentration Camp with barbed wire and ovens. But then, perhaps worried that he’s coming off a little too Adolf, as in Hitler, Kincannon then tried to walk back his remarks and say that transgendered people shouldn’t be in ‘camps,’ per se, but maybe a good mental institution’.

"I have plenty of compassion for trannies," Kincannon said, using a word that most of the LGBT community and anyone with a brain that fires on cylinders finds offensive. "They should all be locked up in mental institutions and their care paid for by the state."

So, naturally, the T in the LGBT community, as well as the L, G and B’s, and many straight folks, took umbrage with his remarks on Twitter and Kincannon kept stirring the pot:

"The trannies are still mad!"

Then he said that anyone and everyone who stood up for the transgendered community, anyone who called him out on his moronic, asshatted, stupid, homophobic, Nazi-esque stance were, in fact, "trannies" themselves, and then he went on to say that his special brand of hate was due to his knowledge — he knows this y’all — that transgendered people choose to be that way:

"Jews, brown people, and gays are born that way. It's okay to hate trannies because they choose trannyism. Just like Muslims."

And when some people asked that he respectfully stop using the word ‘tranny' — and also saying that he had a right to his opinion, mind you, no matter how vile — Kincannon responded thusly:

"How about 'dickchicks'? [or] disgusting goddamn weirdos that all normal people hate who need serious mental health treatment?"

"There is no sane heterosexual or homosexual man who enjoys 'dickchicks'."

"You freaks are about to legitimately creep me out. Good lord. You look like a nightmare."

"Gayness is not a mental illness, but wanting to exchange your junk for somebody else's sure as fuck is. Silence of the Lambs shit."

When some folks who follow him — and why are they following him, this man does not need a pulpit or a soapbox or a microphone — reminded him that there is an extremely high rate of suicide among the transgendered community he seemed to like that idea:

"[My reaction to suicide] depends on who it is that offs himself ... Tell me, if you were a suicidal 'dickchick' wouldn't you want to go to a mental institution instead of arguing with me on Twitter?"

The good news — and there is some — is that Todd Kincannon hasn't held political office in years, but the fact remains that he is still a figurehead within the GOP and this is the kind of person that holds power and sway within the party, which is why he is also a candidate for ISBL Asshat of the Week.

So, who will it be, the apparently self-loathing, Jo Jordan, who has voted away her chance at equality because, well, I don’t know why because she’s never said a concise and cogent thing about her vote, or the inexplicably vile Todd Kincannon. One’s a democrat, one’s a Republican, proving that asshattedness is clearly bipartisan. One's an anti-gay gay and one's a transphobic moron.

So who gets you vote … or do we make it a tie?