LaBarbera Award: Pat Boone

Jim Burroway

December 9th, 2008

Pat Boone has definitely gone over the edge. In his latest outrage at WorldNetDaily, Boone tut-tuts the recent massacres at Mumbai, and draws a direct line of connection between that terrorist operation and demonstrations against Prop 8:

Thank God, it couldn’t happen here. Could it?

Look around. Watch your evening news. Read your newspaper.

Are you unaware of the raging demonstrations in our streets, in front of our churches and synagogues, even spilling into these places of worship, and many of these riots turning defamatory and violent? Have you not seen the angry distorted faces of the rioters, seen their derogatory and threatening placards and signs, heard their vows to overturn the democratically expressed views of voters, no matter what it costs, no matter what was expressed at the polls? Twice?

… Assuming you have become aware of all this, let me ask you: Have you not seen the awful similarity between what happened in Mumbai and what’s happening right now in our cities?

When terrorists launched their attack on Mumbai two weeks ago, they killed 163 people in a shocking carnage which is now being referred to as India’s 9/11. Contrast that to the demonstrations which have broken out all across American against the passage of Prop 8 — not riots, as Boone calls them, but demonstrations — which have all been remarkably peaceful. In fact, I challenge Boone to name a single riot on American soil since election day.

Boone isn’t the first to falsely characterize these peaceful protests as “violence” and “riots,” but he is the first well-known figure to claim that peaceful marchers are equivalent to militant Islamists with automatic weapons and grenades. Boone succeeds in raising the false “violence” charge to a whole new and disgusting level. All that’s missing now is a holocaust analogy. I’m sure we’ll see that before too long.

Bruno

December 9th, 2008

I find it funny that these religious nutjobs of all persuasions brand LGBT folks as “sinners,” when they lie their asses off each and every day. Pat Boone may have a surprise waiting for him in his afterlife.

Lynn David

December 9th, 2008

I read this before I saw your article, Jim, and I couldn’t help but think Boone was due a LaBarbera!

These wingnut are only writing for their own efficacy now. How anyone can believe such an article, I cannot imagine. Though I am sure that someone somewhere for the freepers or some forum is posting this article). More’s the pity.

cowboy

December 9th, 2008

MSNBC Countdown with Keith Olbermann gave Patt Boonee the Worst Person Award yesterday.

It is satisfying this 1950s bobby-sock-wearing-fan crooner got nailed on a national cable show but I still maintain the LaBarbera Award has more prestige.

I put Mr. Boone in the same barrel as Donny Osmond. Why do some people give these Has-Beens any credence?

HappyCat

December 9th, 2008

I had to look up who Looney Boone is, well, was. He must have been, a, sleeping when Loving vs. Virgiania took place.

A very good pick for the LeBarbera award.

Mattymatt

December 9th, 2008

But this is how conservatives REALLY FEEL — they actually believe that gays are as bad as a slaughter.

We have a responsibility to correct misperceptions about us, but what can we do in the face of such ignorance? I guess the best we can do is try to prevent broken people like Pat Boone from breaking other people.

So in that respect, yes, I suppose the best strategy would be trying to silence our opponents. Because they are dangerous lunatics.

Timothy Kincaid

December 9th, 2008

Mattymatt,

I’ve got to disagree with you. Most conservatives don’t think gays are as bad as a slaughter. This is just extremism from a loon and truthfully the wackier they get the better it serves our quest for equality.

And you’ll not get me to sign on to any effort to silence Boone or prevent him form speaking.

Kimberly

December 9th, 2008

Just one quick question–where are “he raging demonstrations in our streets, in front of our churches and synagogues, even spilling into these places of worship, and many of these riots turning defamatory and violent? Have you not seen the angry distorted faces of the rioters, seen their derogatory and threatening placards and signs…”

Did I miss that? All the protests I have seen are peaceful. The only acts of violence have been in the words of the religious right.

David C.

December 9th, 2008

To Mattymatt:

I believe the thing to do is let the loons honk out whatever ravings they choose.

We, on the other hand, continue to expose those ravings for what they are, and let the rest of the world judge for itself.

Our job is really pretty easy, just tell the truth all the time.

I’ll repeat some advice I recently posted in this forum:

One of our strategies in the battle for hearts and minds has to be shining a light on tactics the [enemies of gay rights] use to vilify and denigrate gay people in this country and elsewhere. No lie, distortion, liable, or slander against a gay person or organization may go unchallenged. We need to define the vocabulary, appropriating the terminology of our detractors if necessary, to expose their hypocrisy.

St. James

December 9th, 2008

Anyone who believes gay folk are behaving badly in the aftermath of Proposition 8 needs to read this link about the oppression and indignities that gays have been subjected to in the past, and which still continue far too often:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_LGBT_people

Rick

December 9th, 2008

Pat Boone is irrelevant.

grantdale

December 9th, 2008

A well deserved award for someone who’s long been on the shortlist. Much of that screed being the same tired claptrap we’ve come to expect, one section was however truly eye-poppingly stupid:

Slavery was abolished … these true rights were not obtained by threats and violent demonstrations and civil disruption [] but by due process, congressional deliberations and
appropriate ratification. This was democracy in action, not mob rule. [] rights are earned and won in a deliberative, legal way – at the polls.

How on earth could ANY American not know that slavery was only abolished after 600,000 people had died in a Civil War???

God almighty. What a plonker.

Regan DuCasse

December 9th, 2008

All the ‘truth’ about gay people coming from people like Pat Boone?

Like the truth about black people coming from the Citizen’s Council and the Klan, or the truth about Jews coming from the Nazis.

Pat Boone was never at ANY of the rallies, or townhall meetings or BEFORE Prop 8, was even at issue…what’s the difference between what Boone or LaBarbera say now, or then?

He’s reporting from rumors he heard from cowards hiding behind computer monitors.
Had any of them shown up where we were, no one would have recognized them from the rest of the crowd.

No, I resent this misrepresentation and comparison to what happened in Mumbai.
Gay people in Islamic countries get EXECUTED, even if they are kids!
THEY don’t even participate in the jihad where THEY live. They aren’t allowed in.

How do we write him and call him on his obvious LIBEL.

cd

December 9th, 2008

It‘s rather amazing how gay rights groups have gone from being pathetic losers to devious lisping sissies to violent rioters and murderous terrorists in the extremist conservative “mind“ in a matter of weeks.

“First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. And then….“ :-)

John

December 9th, 2008

At the risk of being a bit too picky…were there any major (or not so major) demonstrations directed at synagogues, or was that just thrown in there to sound ecumenical???

John D

December 10th, 2008

In response to John:

To the best of my knowledge, there haven’t been any protests at synagogues, but why would there be? Jews voted against Prop 8. While the Orthodox are against same-sex marriage, the other streams (which make up the bulk of American Jews) support marriage equality.

Pat’s trying to sound ecumenical. But it’s just another case where he’s wrong.

B Boyak

December 12th, 2008

Pat Boone, the NEW Anita Bryant!!

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