The blame game

One unexpected (but highly entertaining!) offshoot of Tuesday’s US presidential election is the flood of stories from disgruntled McCain aides about Sarah Palin. Newsweek is reporting that Palin spent a whole lot more than $150,000 on clothes: “An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as ‘Wasilla hillbillies
looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,’ and said the truth will
eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.” Then there’s this hilariously awful report from FOX News:

Palin, of course, blames the media with its pesky need for “accountability” and “truth.”

TV shows like ‘Sex and the City’ and ‘Dexter’ are being blamed for teen pregnancy and even murder! It’s scary — why, just last week, I watched an episode of ‘Brothers & Sisters’ and was unable to stop myself from calling up family members and blurting out inappropriate emotional truths!

Parents trying to protect their children from sexual abuse are finally shifting their blame from the gay men who have no interest in children to the hockey coaches who have too much interest.

But the big blame story, of course, is the ban on same-sex marriage enacted in California and Florida on Tuesday. Florida — the home of boy bands, fundamentalists and Disney — was no great shock but sunny, liberal California? That hurt, and the aftermath’s been unpleasant: there’s shock over African-American voters favouring the ban by 70% (what would Obama say?) and Christians are nervous about gay blogger rage (it’s scary — why, just last night, I pistol-whipped a Christian boy and left him to die on a fence! Oh wait, no, I’m thinking of what happened to Matthew Shepard ten years ago. Why is that always on my mind?)

 

Me, I blame the Mormons, who funded the anti-gay vote to the tune of $20 million. I’m appalled that a group who’ve had some (ahem) marriage debates of their own would become so militant on this issue and I truly hated this comment from yesterday: “Salt Lake City-based church elder L.
Whitney Clayton says the church is genuinely concerned about the
emotional divide created by the gay marriage issue and says he hopes
people will treat each other with civility and respect.” Translation: “We feel terrible about the bad names you called us after we kicked you in the head.”

Tell you what, Whitney — I can’t speak for all gay men but I myself promise to treat you and your religion with the same civility and respect you’ve shown us and our lives, which is to say, none whatsover. Blame me if you must but the protests in California last night back me up:

A former editor of the late, lamented fab magazine, Scott has been writing for Xtra since 2007 on a variety of topics in news pieces, interviews, blogs, reviews and humour pieces. He lives on the Danforth with his boyfriend of 12 years, a manic Jack Russell Terrier, a well-stocked mini-bar and a shelf of toy Daleks.

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