Gays, Rights and You
Both the Washington Post and Fox News’ headline writers blow it today. Here are the headlines that caught ‘Puter’s attention:
WaPo headline: Obama Extends Hospital Visitation Rights to Same-Sex Partners of Gays
Fox News headline: White House Orders Hospitals to Grant Gay Couples Visitation Rights
What’s ‘Puter’s beef here? ‘Puter thinks that both of these headlines fail to accurately portray the status of gays and their rights. Objectively, gays have the inherent right to be treated similarly to other Americans, including the right to choose with whom they associate. President Obama and the government have not granted gays a new right, they have simply recognized the existing rights of gays. These headlines read as if the government has done gays some huge favor, when in reality all government has done is cease its discriminatory denial of gays’ inalienable rights.
Why is this important? It’s important because we folks with a conservative/libertarian bent need to defend the notion that rights are inherent to people, even in people with whom we may disagree. Rights are not bestowed on mankind by government, at least not in America.
Words are indicative of ideas, and ideas lead to policies, which lead to laws. Controlling the language means controlling the agenda. Therefore, it is incumbent on us to correct media misrepresentation on these fundamental issues, and to be consistent.
Even — especially — when you may not agree with the beneficiaries of your acts.
Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.
’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.
The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.
His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.
He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.
Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.
‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.