I Didn't Say It ...

Cardinal Raymond Burke, on the story of an Australian couple who asked how to respond to their gay son bringing his partner to Christmas dinner:

“This is a very delicate question, and it’s made even more delicate by the aggressiveness of the homosexual agenda. But one has to approach this in a very calm, serene, reasonable and faith-filled manner. If homosexual relations are intrinsically disordered, which indeed they are — reason teaches us that and also our faith — then, what would it mean to grandchildren to have present at a family gathering a family member who is living [in] a disordered relationship with another person? We wouldn’t, if it were another kind of relationship — something that was profoundly disordered and harmful — we wouldn’t expose our children to that relationship, to the direct experience of it. And neither should we do it in the context of a family member who not only suffers from same-sex attraction, but who has chosen to live out that attraction, to act upon it, committing acts which are always and everywhere wrong, evil. And so, families have to find a way to stay close to a child in this situation — to a son or grandson, or whatever it may be — in order to try to draw the person away from a relationship which is disordered.”

First off, Cardinal, f**k off.

I would much prefer a happy couple straight or gay, to be around children than a hate-filled member of some group that aids, abets, condones, covers up, and pays restitution for decades of child rapists.

So again, f**k off.

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Wesley Clark, ex-NATO Supreme Allied Commander, on _____’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria:

“Well I’m very concerned because there doesn’t seem to be any strategic rationale for the decision. And if there’s no strategic rationale for the decision then you have to ask, why was the decision made? People around the world are asking this and some of our friends and our allies in the Middle East are asking, did Erdogan blackmail the president? Was there a payoff is or something? Why would a guy make a decision like this? Because all the recommendations were against it.”

Perhaps there was blackmail.

Perhaps there was a payoff.

Perhaps there was Putin.

Perhaps _____ is just an ill-equipped, unhinged buffoon.

Or, perhaps it’s all of the above.

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_____, on Christmas Day:

“It’s a disgrace what’s happening in our country. But other than that, I wish everybody a very Merry Christmas. Thank you very much.”

He’s right; it is a disgrace what’s happening in our country with an idiot like _____in the Oval.

Look at me! Agreeing with _____! It’s a Christmas Miracle!

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Kevin  Spacey, using the voice of his House of Cards character Frank Underwood in a strange video released shortly after he was charged with felony sexual assault against a minor:

“Of course, some believed everything and have been just waiting with bated breath to hear me confess it all. They’re just dying to have me declare that everything said is true and that I got what I deserved. Wouldn’t that be easy? If it was all so simple? Only you and I both know it’s never that simple, not in politics and not in life.  But you wouldn’t believe the worst without evidence would you? You wouldn’t rush to judgments without facts, would you? Would you? Did you?”

Apparently there are a few eyewitnesses and, because this is the age of the cellphone, a video proving Spacey is a perv.

Sorry, Kev, not sorry.

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Martina Navratilova, tennis legend, saying transgender women should not be allowed in women’s sports: 

“Clearly that can’t be right. You can’t just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women. There must be some standards, and having a penis and competing as a woman would not fit that standard, For me it’s all about fairness, which means taking every case individually… there is no cookie cutter way of doing things.”

Way to go, Martina. Feed the idiots who think a penis makes you a man, or a vagina makes you female.

I thought you were smarter than that.

Navratilova walked back her statement and has apologized, but, still, educate yourself, or at least think, before speaking.

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Billy Porter, fabulous, and fabulously gay, actor and singer, on Kevin Hart’s homophobic “jokes”:

“I’m going to get into this Kevin Hart thing for just a second. Because it’s not about you having a joke. That’s not what it’s about. I’ve seen people and I’ve heard people who are not homophobic who do gay jokes. And you can tell that they’re not homophobic. I think Monique, a long time ago, she did a joke about butt sex. It was a whole thing about butt sex and ‘the gays,’ you know. And the punchline was something like, ‘Yeah, but don’t knock it till you try it!’ And then we must stop the person who we know is using a joke, but she’s not a homophobic person. She’s not saying, ‘If I come home and my four-year-old son is playing with a baby doll house, I’m gonna break it over his head and tell him it’s gay.’ That crosses a line. Because that allows your fans to think that [you can] hit somebody because you don’t like them. You don’t like their sexuality, ‘so I can bash you in the head.’ We’re not doing that anymore … Y’all don’t get to have that language no more without somebody on the other side challenging that. You had long enough to spew that darkness into the world without somebody on the other side shedding some light on it. We’re done with that. It’s march-into-the-streets time! We have an administration that thinks that it can, with a sentence, erase a whole group of people. And we’re not going to do anything about it? Transgender people don’t exist? Fuck that. I say to Kevin Hart, and I say to D.L. Hughley, I say to those people who think that they don’t need to apologize for shit and dig their heels in their toxic masculinity: But you want your rights! You want people to stop shooting your children in the back? But yet still, you turn around and oppress other people the same way you’re being oppressed. Fuck that. Fuck you. We’re done.”

Bravo, sir, bravo.

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I Didn't Say It ...

Billy Crystal, who played Jodie Dallas on 1970s Soap, the first openly gay character to regularly appear on network TV, on gays on TV today:

"I did it in front of a live audience, and there were times where I would say to [the actor who played his boyfriend], 'Bob, “I love you,' and the audience would laugh nervously, because, you know, it’s a long time ago, that I’d feel this anger. I wanted to stop the tape and go, 'What is your problem?' Because it made you sort of very self-conscious about what we were trying to do then. And now it’s just, I see it and I just hope people don’t abuse it and shove it in our face — well, that sounds terrible — to the point of it just feels like an everyday kind of thing."

I was kind of disheartened to hear this from Billy, because, as a young queerling, I wanted to see me on TV and I didn’t—at least not very often. And, if Billy has a problem with in-your-face homosexuality, does he have a problem with in-your-face heterosexuality?

UPDATE:  Crystal has clarified his statement:

"What I meant was that whenever sex or graphic nudity of any kind (gay or straight) is gratuitous to the plot or story it becomes a little too much for my taste."

Much better, Billy.

Frank Bruni, on The Gays being a threat to religion:

"I’ve been called many unpleasant things in my life, and I’ve deserved no small number of them. But I chafe at this latest label: A threat to your religious liberty. I don’t mean me alone. I mean me and my evidently menacing kind: men who have romantic relationships with other men and maybe want to marry them, and women in analogous situations. According to many of the Americans who still cast judgment on us, our 'I do' somehow tramples you, not merely running counter to your creed but running roughshod over it. That’s absurd. And the deference that many politicians show to such thinking is an example not of religion getting the protection it must but of religious people getting a pass that isn’t warranted. It’s an illustration of religion’s favored status in a country that’s still working out this separation-of-church-and-state business and hasn’t yet gotten it quite right."

Once again: word. Keep your religion out of marriage because it’s a civil right, not a religious one.

Shepard Smith, Fox "News" anchor, on the Supreme Court's decision to review the Sixth Circuit same-sex marriage cases:

"Not in every case, but in most cases, the same states which were fighting integration are fighting this as well. Those states which always seem to be behind the curve for reasons which are explainable and understandable."

Sad to say, but you can see it’s true just by looking at a map of marriage equality states versus non-equality states.

Sidenote: it’s lovely that South Carolina bucked that trend.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of the most outspoken anti-gay Catholic activists, blaming women for the problems the church is facing:

“Apart from the priest, the sanctuary has become full of women...the activities in the parish and even the liturgy have been influenced by women and become so feminine in many places that men do not want to get involved. Men are often reluctant to become active in the church. The feminised environment and the lack of the church’s effort to engage men has led many men to simply opt out.”

Funny, though, I don’t hear of cases of women raping altar boys, so that sexual abuse problem that the Catholic Church has been fighting for decades is created and perpetuated and aided and abetted by men.

Maybe the Church should let women take over and clean up that mess.

Kevin Hart, while promoting his new film The Wedding Ringer, on turning down a role in Tropic Thunder because it was a gay character:

"Not because I have any ill will or disrespect, it's because I feel like I can't do that because I don't think I'm really going to dive into that role 100%. Because of the insecurities about myself trying to play that part. Like, would I think people are going to think while I'm trying to do this is going to stop me from playing that part the way that I'm supposed to."

So, what he’s saying is he can’t play gay because he’s afraid people will think he’s gay? Or because, maybe he’ll turn gay?

Siddown Kevin. You’re one annoying little man.

Papal Props ... Slight Papal Props

It’s no secret that I am not a fan of the Catholic Church, and it’s Pope. I have this thing where I don’t like people or organizations who harbor child rapists, who give child rapists pensions for life if they just go away, who pay off victims of child rape with millions and millions of dollars that they could use for the “Lord’s work” if they would only stop harboring, protecting, and pensioning child rapists.

And I am not so fond of this somewhat new though slightly tarnished Pope Frankie either. When he first came on the scene he was virulently anti-marriage equality, and while he has evolved — much like President Obama — on the issue, he hasn’t fully come around to joining the 21st century. And, sure, he has said some nice things about The Gays, about the Church welcoming The Gays, about how The Gays have “something” to offer — other than being a scapegoat for the Church — he mostly talks but does nothing.

I am kind of an “actions speak louder than words” kinda gay, but, for today, I’ll give Frankie some props.

See, last year Pope Frankie removed Cardinal Raymond Burke — a very conservative American cardinal who doesn’t seem to care for Frankie very much — off the Vatican's powerful Congregation for Bishops, which deals with appointments of bishops worldwide, and then last week Cardinal Burke was removed as the leader of the Vatican’s highest court and re-appointed to a ceremonial position — which, I think, means he gets to keep the wardrobe — as chaplain of the Knights of Malta, a charity group.

And that demotion — though I wonder if it involves a pay decrease — is rather significant because generally the position of Patron of the Order of Malta is given to a retired cardinal, or offered as a second task to an active cardinal.

Still, the move is no surprise to anyone who’s watched the Vatican since Frankie moved his Prada slip-ons into the Royal, er, Papal closet.  After Frankie suggested that The Gays not be treated as less than, as the scourge of the Church, Burke strapped on his heels and pushed hard for the Vatican to revise and water-down its tentative step — really a non-step since nothing happened — toward greater acceptance of LGBT people.

Then he criticized Frankie’s questioned Francis' denunciation of excesses of capitalism — meaning Burke was all about the Benjamin’s and the cushy lifestyle of Cardinal — and then he gave an interview in which he called Frankie’s leadership “a ship without a rudder.”

So, it was really no surprised that Frankie kicked him to a less desirable curb.

And, like I said, while I’m no fan of the Church and the Pope, I’ll give him props for attempting to clean house ... with a whisk broom.

Pope Francis Demotes Outspoken Conservative Cardinal

Hard-line US cardinal loses another Vatican job