Anderson Cooper quizzes supporter of pastor who proposes concentration camps for gay people

freshacconci

Your idea of entertaining is different than mine. This just makes me anxious, agitated, and more than a little sad.

Mark_Frauenfelder

It’s entertaining because if people like her are the remaining bronze-age holdouts in the battle for equality, victory is inevitable.
- freshacconci
  
  I do like your optimism. Can’t say I share it but I’m a bit of an expect-the-worst-be-pleasantly-surprised type.
  - Mark_Frauenfelder
    
    I do believe we are making progress!
    - Ito Kagehisa
      
      “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one. . . . But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.” — Theodore Parker, 1853
    - robuluz
      
      @boingboing-506774f849b3f6f756077ca458da621a:disqus I like that one a lot.
- ocker3
  
  Unless there are a Lot of them…
  - ChicagoD
    
    “Lot.” That’s a salty response.
    - Grahamers2002
      
      What you did there…I see it.
    - http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael
      
      his wife is a pillar of the community
- haineux
  
  For your respected consideration: I rarely find politics to be entertaining. Sure, politics is frequently OMGIMPORTANTone but there are at least 9999.2^π blogs that cover those issues.
  
  I’d prefer bOINGbOING to stay true to its charter of “a journal of wonderful things”. Indeed, half the items on the “front page” fit that. I just wish the other half also did.
  
  Thanks for your attention, etc.
  Brigadier General Oystersauce
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    I’d prefer bOINGbOING to stay true to its charter of “a journal of wonderful things”.
    
    How many times do I have to say this? We changed our tagline to A Compendium of Greasy Peccadilloes.
    - http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios
      
      Oh, sweet Christ on a cracker did I ever just LOL.
      
      I mean literally. Woke the cats and everything. On a more serious note, I agree with what Mark said above. This woman and her kind are on the way out. Victory is ours.
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    I like it just the way it is, which vocal minority should they pay attention to?
    - http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael
      
      >which vocal minority should they pay attention to?
      
      The one that wants concentration camps for posters who post political posts.
      
      Their wheels are the squaekiest. Will they get their grease? Is it a sign their social skills are rusty? Or are they just off their rockers?
      
      Next, on “Say Yes to the Dress: Trollish commentors get married”
  - http://profiles.google.com/macrumpton Michael Crumpton
    
    I am not sure what aspect of this post you think is about politics. I read it as a expose on the lack of deep thought required for bigotry.
    - Zachary_Bos
      
      “an expose on the lack of deep thought required for bigotry”
      
      How much deep thought IS needed for bigotry?
  - michaelgillman
    
    I do not see the issues surrounding this topic to be entirely political. This is instead an issue of morality, civil rights, and justice. I think it’s extremely important that us brilliant people who read of ‘wonderful things’ be reminded that there are people in this world who cannot comprehend a basic logical argument.
  - http://twitter.com/snookasnoo Idon’t Know
    
    Did someone put a gun to your head and force you to read every Boing Boing article?
- BookGuy
  
  The thing that gnaws at me is that, while people like this women are clearly idiots, it doesn’t take much book-learnin’ to do horrible, horrible things to other people.
- Shinkuhadoken
  
  There are people like Glenn Beck who do this to ill-spoken supporters of left leaning causes as well, such as making a well-meaning, but ill-informed supporter of universal healthcare look like an idiot. Interviews like this don’t really accomplish much except to give you a false sense of what your political opponents are really like.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=2701638 Mike Gorman
    
    The difference is that Beck and other right-wing media personalities accomplish this by yelling over their “guests” and not letting them get a word in edgewise. In this interview Cooper is letting this lady take ample time to collect her thoughts and try to respond. Sure, maybe she’s nervous. But in most of her responses she swings back around and tries to hop back on the conservative talking-points train. Poorly.
  - michaelgillman
    
    I agree. However, if this is what ‘they’ are doing to ‘us’, we should not fear doing similar to them. We are doing it for civil rights, they are doing it to smear disinformation and hatred for no apparent reason. The ‘good’ and ‘informed’ must use any tactic necessary to battle such idiocy.
- travtastic
  
  The Bronze Age is deeply saddened by your comparison.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Achilles is downright pissed off about it.
    - vrplumber
      
      Psshh, Achilles was a heel anyway.
  - Bangorian
    
    I knew the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age was a friend of mine. This woman is no Bronze Age.
- http://profiles.google.com/macrumpton Michael Crumpton
  
  It is amazing to me that people like this with so little ability for any kind of critical thinking could actually do things like hold jobs, cook meals or even dress themselves.
  - travtastic
    
    Come on. There’s no evidence that she’s actually done any of those things.
http://jimbeach.net mindfu

I do think it’s important to look at tho.

Jeffrey Duckworth

Apparently, this pastor has forgotten that gays and lesbians don’t reproduce well so it must be his god that’s creating them…

rocketjam

Jeffrey you fool! They’re running around converting straight kids. Hence the need for concentration camps. It’s the only way to be sure.
http://profiles.google.com/macrumpton Michael Crumpton

From the way that woman was talking it sounded to me like she thought the solution to the “gay problem” was to incarcerate and separate the lesbians from the gay men to prevent them from breeding. Either that or she was thinking that gays only come from unions where straight people were being seduced into breeding with gays. Either way I think she is a little confused about the whole gay concept.

mccrum

I keep wondering why anyone would think this is a good idea. Gay people don’t sleep with each other and make more gay people. Most gay people are going to be born to straight parents.

Of course, then people are going to tell me that’s the problem right there and that’s who we’ve got to put a fence around: People havin’ kids!

lknope

Of course! Why hasn’t anyone made this connection before? The only way to stop the scourge of homosexuality is for heterosexuals to stop reproducing. Dirty heterosexual procreative sex is making new homosexuals every day. It must be stopped!
- vattenpipa
  
  It should be a breeze brainstorming together a meme aimed straight at the Religious Right whipping them into a frenzy about how they, being devote and all, should stop making the corrupt bebees and hence outlaw procreation, full stop.
  
  THE RISK IS TO HIGH!!
  YOU COULD BE FATHERING A GAYBY AT THIS VERY MOMENT.
  JEBUS WANTS YOU TO HAVE A VASECTOMY!
  
  Could someone smack that onto a poster designed appropriately for the demo?
  - ImmutableMichael
    
    Ban children. Future generations will thank us.
    
    (I can’t claim credit for that but I can’t for the life of me remember the source…)
jandrese

If this is what they think, than the repression of Gays and forcing people in the closet is actually counterproductive as they will then reproduce and pass on the gay to their children. If they really thought this way, simply stopping the repression would wipe out gayness in a couple of generations!
michaelgillman

Tell them that if we abort all the fetuses, there will be no more gays.

Mike Norman

I find it comforting to think that she might be entirely representative of homophobics in general; Intelligent people have all seen the light, and all that are left are hostile barely-functionally-literate morons like her.

What an incredibly stupid and classless person.

Peppermint

Comforting but, alas, not true.

The clever people simply realise that homophobia is not socially acceptable anymore, and don’t mention it in public. I unfortunately have first-hand experience of this…

jimh

Kudos to Coop for keeping it pretty easy-going. He could have been much harder on her. (I felt my own anger urging him to go for the throat.) When he thanked her at the end though, her sarcastic reply really showed her contempt. It baffles me that somehow she became the spokesperson for the church.

mccrum

I sincerely doubt she is an official spokesperson for the church. Most likely she was asked if she, as a member of the church, would talk on camera and she agreed. I doubt she would see herself as speaking for the church when she, as a member, is being seen exactly as the spokesperson for the church.

Her fascination upon everyone continuing to talk about the electric fences was interesting to me. Coop had moved on and was discussing something else and she wasn’t even bothering to listen.
- Dr_Wadd
  
  I got the impression that she realised fairly quickly that her arguments were being demolished, but being unable to offer an effective counter-argument she was panicking and reverting to her default response.
  - Mike Battaglia
    
    I think what you describe is a level of self-awareness that’s completely missing here, I sincerely doubt that she had any realization that her arguments were being felled by the simplest of logic, hence the “why do you keep HARPING on this – I ALREADY told you…”
    There is no “thought” here, no critical thinking, and thus no answers but “bzzt – uhh – gays are bad and should be put to death because the Bible”.
    - seyo
      
      I think there is. But one other component of the conservative Christian mentality is mean spirited dishonesty. So yes, even when they know they are wrong, even when they know their arguments are being demolished, the stubborn meanness and the deeply ingrained dishonesty allows them to hold on to their position. Because in the end they don’t really care if you think they look foolish. You are the subhuman one in their eyes, and the hope that one day they will be able to simply put all their opponents to death carries them through the tedium of debate. To them words are the province of intellectuals, and we know what they think of intellectuals. So I think you’re mistaken in this regard. And it’s dangerous to to just dismiss them as being dumb and lacking self awareness etc. They’re primarily mean, angry, dishonest and violent.
    - Mike Battaglia
      
      Well said, seyo. Thanks.
    - CH
      
      Seyo: I really don’t think she understood any of Mr Coopers arguments. Look at her eye rolling when she is trying to explain how putting gays gender segregated behind a fence would stop having more gays (around 1:42… “No, that’s not what I mean. If man and man were in the same _fence_ *eye roll*…”). At least to me it clearly looks like she thinks Mr Cooper is incredibly dense in not getting her point. I think she argued the issue as strongly as she was capable of.
http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino

It baffles me that somehow she became the spokesperson for the church.

Considering what the pastor is already saying in public, I hardly find that baffling.

kP

A mighty wind does blow out of North Carolina

sota767

I’m not sure I’d classify a bigoted idiot stumbling over their own words trying to justify an absurd point of view “entertainment”.

Atomicpanda

I’m sure.
foobar

Schadenfreude.

It’s not to everyone’s taste, and should be taken in moderation even if it is.
travtastic

It’s entertainment as long as they can’t actually act out their desires.

bcsizemo

Just as a general note for the BB audience….not everyone from NC sounds like this or thinks like this.

What is it with all these crazies coming out of the wood work lately?
http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/05/21/2079629/kkk-fliers-promote-cross-burning.html
Case in point….FML.

John Vance

Seriously, Asheville is looking more and more like the Austin of North Carolina.
http://twitter.com/MartianEmpress Rezeya Montecore

America is purple. It’s okay. I’m from Ohio, so I’ve had my share of it. :)
- hymenopterid
  
  That’s the hypoxia.
Snig

Colbert came from SC, and that’s even more South. No worries; crazy, kind, dumb and smart don’t pay attention to geography.

miasm

If art can be defined as something made by an artist, then religion can be defined as the particular interpretation of religion made by the religious person.
But only in that moment, subject to change in the future and for the past to be re-reinterpreted at any time.

http://twitter.com/damnit_Jim Jim Gray

This was kind of cruel. You can’t take a seasoned reporter/interviewer and have him ask questions of an ignorant hillbilly. She stood no chance of getting her message acrross. She wasn’t even able to say the pastor was using hyperbole or exageration or sarcasm, instead she mumbled around him saying it but not really wanting it. Next time I suggest a supporter of this pastor be interviewed by a macaroni duck. That should even things out nicely.

bcsizemo

Wait…
Really…sarcasm, hyperbole?

She can’t answer like that because she doesn’t believe that. In her mind the correct and only answer to every question that was asked, was “Yes if the bible says they should die, then I believe they should die.”

I’m honestly surprised she or anyone did an interview. People like this may seem ignorant (not saying they aren’t), but they typically have a scary amount of conviction. I’m not sure if one goes with the other, but either way the combination can be dangerous.
Mike Battaglia

Where was that sarcasm, hyperbole and exaggeration again?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XDXCHOC3MSV5MBEOPV76POG7EE Jonathan

Cruel? As a gay man, I personally think that talking in public about putting us in concentration camps and letting us ‘die out’ is cruel. Denying us rights afford to straight people is cruel. Letting us get fired for our orientation without legal protection is cruel. Denying us death benefits when our partners pass away is cruel. Certainly, taunting, harassment and outright physical assault up to and including torture and murder is cruel. A rhetorical smackdown of an ignorant, hate-filled woman? Calling that cruel is an insult to anyone who’s ever been the victim of real homophobic discrimination.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Bruce-Wright/1451447525 Bruce Wright
  
  A million times *like*. You said it, Jonathan.
- hymenopterid
  
  I’m sure he’s dead serious about the duck too.
- http://twitter.com/damnit_Jim Jim Gray
  
  Wow, at the end I suggested the woman be interviewed by a macaroni duck to get her on equal footing, because she is clearly an idiot. I laughed at some of the comments I got as people missed that I was trying (failing) to use sarcasm to point out how she was unable to coherently put forth her argument. When I read your post I just felt bad. I apolgize if my making light of this video offended you in any way. I in no way meant to defend her or her beliefs, she as I said is an ignorant hillbilly.
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XDXCHOC3MSV5MBEOPV76POG7EE Jonathan
    
    No worries, Jim! Apology accepted, and by all means, make light of the video; I find ridicule to be an EXCELLENT defence against ignorance and self-importance. Perhaps understandably, I’m a little sensitive about any (real or perceived) defence of these people. Sorry for misinterpreting your comment :)
    - ImmutableMichael
      
      People being careful to choose their words; concern about possible mistinterpretation; respect and decency; manners and thoughtfulness???
      
      This is not the intenet I grew up with. Get a grip people.
    - robuluz
      
      You do realise that if you guys continue to clarify comments and resolve disagreements you’ll break the internet, right?
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      First!
    - SamSam
      
      Aww… the “Likes” in this thread are very high.
      
      Everybody, have threads where you make good point and understand each other! It will be a new internet meme!
Sigmund_Jung

Well, if you say all that crap in the pulpit but don’t care to face the inquiry, you’ll have to be represented by whoever is passing by.
Andrew Singleton

Not sure if Sarcastic or Trolling.

Wild Rumpus

The stoopid – it hurts!!!!!

http://www.millsworks.net/blog Robbo

The depth of her ignorance is staggering. I can’t wait for the day when Cooper is up against more of this mindless vitriol and finally steps up to the plate outs himself. It’s waaaay past time.

http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm

The fact that people like her vote explains a great deal.

bcsizemo

Sometimes I wonder if the founders really thought this far ahead…
- Joshua Ochs
  
  The Founders never expected everyone to vote – originally it was the sole privilege of landowning white males. This has been expanded to all citizens over 18 over the last two centuries, I’d argue to the great benefit of the nation.
  
  If you’re worried about people such as her voting and thus having their way with the country, there’s a solution – make sure you vote as well to counteract it. When people stay home because they’re tired of politics or think everyone running is the same, people like this will control the agenda. We may never get the candidates we want, but we’re sure to get ones we don’t want if we don’t participate.
  - travtastic
    
    Cancelling out someone’s vote isn’t a solution. Educate the ignorant. If there’s a measurable quantity of people who can even listen to this garbage without getting upset, something failed and needs fixed.
    - http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
      
      so, make homeschooling illegal?
    - OoerictoO
      
      how can we educate the ignorant? by voting in people who put education as paramount.
- http://jimbeach.net mindfu
  
  They did. Thomas Jefferson I believe had a quote along the lines of “People are the best guardians of their own best interest, even if they’re not among the most wise.”
  
  What the founders didn’t foresee was corporations gaining such power that they could propagandize so many into being distracted against their own real self-interest.
  - jimh
    
    Absolutely. And I think they always assumed that the populace would care enough to attempt to understand what was going on, and find that worthwhile. I don’t think they would have had any idea about the spoon-fed spin that now passes for information on the “issues”. This was long before Edward Bernays, also.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1515015318 Missy Pants
    
    Jefferson also kept all his slaves, only every freeing two, and allowing two of his children/slaves to “escape” and thought that the conquest of Canada would be “just a matter of marching”, and he refused to support Haiti, instead supporting an embargo against it. Seriously, the man had some twisted moral compass, not the kind of guy you want to quote about people’s rights or guardianship.
  - jandrese
    
    That’s an interesting viewpoint to take given how hilariously partisan the newspapers of the day were. They were also pretty much the last word in news in those days, so the founding fathers had to have a pretty good idea of the power of media monopolies and one sided propaganda.
LinkMan

Yes. I was reminded of that while watching The Dictator in Florida last week. At a scene where two women started making out for a second or two on screen, no less than three women in the audience (in different parts of the theater) spontaneously screamed “Ew!”
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  cf. opening narration of The Opposite of Sex.

petertrepan

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/20923274.jpg

xzzy

I could only make it about halfway before her inability to make a coherent statement forced me to press stop.
She was trying so hard to avoid giving an opinion either way, like she knew she made a mistake appearing on national TV and wanted to avoid being vilified by either her church clique or the rest of the nation.Too bad she lacks the mental acuity to actually pull it off.

thecleaninglady

Just remember, this lady and all people belonging to congregations will rise early on election day and run to the polls to cast their votes as instructed in the name of god.

rrh

I do love her response of, “Oh, nobody’s going to really round up the gays, this is 2012.”

dbergen

I could have sworn I heard her add “but a girl can dream, can’t she” at the end of that nugget.
- rrh
  
  I dunno. She seemed sincere in her weird belief that saying you want to put people in a concentration camp doesn’t mean you really want to put people in a concentration camp and shame on everyone else for not knowing her pastor is a wonderful, kind, and generous human being.

Navin_Johnson

Gay men, are you jealous a little? If only you’d been straight you might be able to court Stacy Pritchard.

Watching and listening to her made my penis do the frightened turtle thing.

robuluz

How can a comment so obviously wrong feel so right?

Drabula

If only we could ‘electric fence’ people that stupid then MAYBE there would be a chance for a registrable change in intelligence levels in a genration or two- much more plausible than trying to purge out ‘teh gays’.
It’s so lame that people can’t even argue their bigoted stances competently. I might have been mildly impressed if she or someone like her responded along the lines of – “people are not born gay. they are seduced in that direction by the rampant gay agenda. if we purge all existing gays from society then there will be no one to spread the virus of their sin to our innocent children”
But then I’d be trying to foist some minor degree of articulation upon these pathetic throw-backs.

http://twitter.com/EsElQueso Adam Gillitt

To paraphrase Bloom County, that was pretty much like watching a fly being swatted with a Buick.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Mark-Mood/795472267 Mark Mood

Personally, I don’t find bigotry and stupidity and incoherence entertaining, but that’s just me…

Rickenbacker4001

Serious question. Would that accent alter if let’s say, the person gets a masters or phd? I am just fascinated listening to that accent. Are there physicists and biologists that talk with that accent? I remember seeing a comedian talk about this concept of there being no Nobel prize winners in Science from the South. Was wondering if this was true.

kcmpls

Bill Clinton has a Southern accent, not a scientist, but an educated person that I think never sounds stupid. It isn’t the accent, but the words she used.
Nylund

A couple years ago I moved to the south. Since then, I’ve met plenty of Ph.D.’s with strong southern drawls. Hearing words like “heteroskedasticity” being spoken with a long slow drawl really amused me when I first arrived. I swear it took about 30 seconds just to say that one word.
But, to answer your question, yes, you can get an advanced degree without losing the accent.

The whole experience actually made me feel pretty ashamed about just how badly I’d previously stereotyped people with southern accents.
- chgoliz
  
  Oh, you’ve reminded me: the one thing I had to get used to was the pacing of conversation. I’m naturally a New Yorker type: mm-hmm, yup, uh-huh, wow….showing I’m paying attention by responding. Every time I did that, my graduate school friend (or her husband) would stop talking. I had to work really hard to learn how to hold back and say nothing, and let at least a couple of seconds go by after they finished a sentence to make sure they really were finished speaking before jumping in.
  
  They never did acclimatize themselves to northern speech patterns. Maybe they would have if they’d have moved up here permanently.
http://www.facebook.com/devonheffer Devon Heffer

Non-native North Carolinian here. I have noticed that while the accent is always there… there is a subtle change as one gains more education. A lot of it may not be “accent” per se, but vocabulary and thoroughness of thought. Those two things can play a large role in how a person sounds to the greater world.

If you’ve ever listened to a recording of William Faulkner, you’ll see what I mean.
petertrepan

I grew up with a heavy Southern accent and intentionally lost it as I started to notice the kinds of things it was associated with.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  My Boston accent was gone by the time the plane landed in California. Despite arguably being the education capital of the world, New England accents don’t exactly make people sound like brainiacs either. I think that strong regional accents just give the impression of provincialism and unworldliness, as if you had never interacted with anyone more remote than your cousins.
  - penguinchris
    
    I come from a region with a particularly neutral accent. People still manage to sound really dumb though – it’s all about the manner of speech.
    
    When I moved to California I naturally adapted very quickly (though I didn’t particularly intend to). I didn’t adopt the Orange County surfer drawl (I only knew a few people who spoke like that) but almost every speech regionalism (e.g. pop vs. soda) and different pronunciation I switched to.
    
    Anyway, now my manner of speech is essentially indecipherable, and I’m happy with that. When I’ve lived back in Buffalo I don’t feel compelled to switch back (although I also don’t talk to anyone here, so that helps).
    
    California is the best place for this. One might think New York City too since people move there from all over, but in New York somehow it just becomes everyone speaking their own way and not adapting. In California most people tend to adapt.
    
    I mean… I’m anti-conformist but the California manner of speaking gives you a great social advantage, for the reasons you describe. And for someone like me who has trouble interpreting many subtleties in speech and body language (aspie), it helps as sort of a leveling effect – I can more easily judge someone by what they’re actually saying when prejudices against stupid-sounding accents are removed. Why the heck aren’t I back in California, it was such a great place for me (except for the problem of not finding a job) :(
  - Slartibartfatsdomino
    
    I have a strong NY accent out here in the Pacific NW and I still get lots of people saying that I’m one of the smartest people they know.
    
    Lest I seem like a braggart, let me note that this is based, I think, on the fact that I have a background history and tend to stay up on current events, rather that I’m actually a lot smarter than most people.
    
    But the point is that my NY accent, while often mocked out here, does not seem to make people discount my intellect.
LinkMan

There are plenty of brilliant doctors, lawyers and politicians who speak with heavy southern accents. Bill Clinton comes to mind.
- jandrese
  
  I’m not sure I’d call Clinton’s accent “heavy”, but it is there.
chgoliz

I was close friends in graduate school with a “hillbilly” from the Smokies in western North Carolina. Her mother was literally afraid to meet me because she thought of herself as “just a hillbilly” and she couldn’t fathom how someone as worldly and sophisticated as me would want to spend time with her. In fact, she was a very smart — albeit not formally educated — person who had raised 5 children and was a pillar of her community. All of the children were decently educated (although only my friend had gone so far in formal education) and gainfully employed.

But yes, they sounded like the region they were born in. Even the one who graduated with honors from an Ivy League school in a major northern city.

In the US, accent usually indicates place of birth, not academic achievement.
Peppermint

If you’re interested in that sort of things you might look into Sociolinguistics… Really interesting field :)

And yes, it would probably alter, because of social expectations. British example: my Sociolinguistics professor this semester was from Birmingham – the city with the most universally hated accent in Great Britain (mostly because it’s a city with a bad reputation, lots of criminality, etc, and also the British seem to prefer the countryside to urban areas in general). When he was young he had a very strong Birmingham accent. But when he went to university his accent became something of a social burden and embarassment. So he started speaking with a different accent – RP (received pronunciation), the “standard British” accent (aka the Queen’s English) in order to be taken more seriously. (As a side note, he says he now regrets ever abandoning his native accent. As do I, because, as a foreigner, I think the Birmingham accent sounds great.)

And it has been shown that accents greatly influence how you’re going to be perceived by the people you’re talking to, depending on the stereotypes associated with your accent.

I suppose it would be likely for the same kind of thing to happen, although perhaps to a lesser extent, in an American university. Most people wouldn’t take students with strong regional accents, and especially Southern accents, quite as seriously in an academic environment, in particular if not a Southern university. It’s unfortunate, but it’s present on a very unconscious level, and very hard to control/ignore.
- http://twitter.com/shay_guy Shay Guy
  
  Really interesting field :)
  
  Aren’t most of them?
  - Peppermint
    
    Good point! I’d argue that it’s a matter of taste and preferences. It’s definitely one of my favourites!
    
    But it’s also not a field I’ve heard about a lot – I barely knew it existed until I went to sociolinguistic classes this semester… It’s as fascinating a topic as any other, but it doesn’t get nearly as much publicity as other fields of linguistics, which is a shame, in my opinion, because linguists have a tendency to examine language as an abstract entity, outside of any consideration of the people who speak it. Which can be interesting, but reductive sometimes.
  - penguinchris
    
    I think when someone says something is a “really interesting field” they really mean that it’s interesting to a wide variety of people.
    
    Things like sociology and psychology are interesting to pretty much everyone because it’s so easy to relate to and understand it (at the basic level).
    
    Every field is really, really interesting – but some are only particularly interesting to those directly involved.
Andrew Glasgow

Harvard Professor E.O. Wilson is from Birmingham, Alabama…look him and his TWO Pulitzer Prizes up!

http://profile.yahoo.com/FRJD66AT6LQ6CZZ46XJO43A4FM Artor

Yup. She sounds just like the ignorant, bigoted redneck dumbfuck I thought she might be. Wow.

dkedke

… and a whole community of supposedly much smarter people are entertained by watching her stumble over her words.
- nyya
  
  It wasn’t so much that she was stumbling over her words, but rather failing epically to back her views with any coherent or sensible argument.
- travtastic
  
  Stumbling over her words? There is literally no rational defense to be made of the mass killing of millions of innocent people. It’s not funny that she’s Southern, it’s black comedy that she’s talking about fucking murdering people.
  - Peppermint
    
    Of course, but in that case there’s no need to even be insulting about her. The horrifying content of what she’s saying should be enough, calling her a “dumbfuck” seems somewhat superfluous.
    - http://www.genreville.com/ Josh Jasper
      
      Then don’t call her a dumbfuck. But lay off people who’s response to calling for genocide is humorous insult.

Nylund

I only got about 20 seconds into it before I had to stop and say, “Wait, with that tone, and those eyerolls, she seems to be implying that this has all been blown out of proportion by all those silly mean people who assume that the pastor actually meant what he said.” (and she fully admitted, it’s what he said.)

http://twitter.com/AntiBoredomTeam Dan Century

What a pitifully ignorant hominid.

OohErMissus

Care to guess where the counties with the most people with bachelor-level degrees and above live in North Carolina?

http://www.facebook.com/devonheffer Devon Heffer

I live in Mecklenburg (Charlotte) and I have to say there are a TON of really smart people around here. I’d also say that we were one of only a few NC counties that actually opposed the recent constitutional ban on same sex marriage. Go figure.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I’ve always wondered why Strelitz got dissed when they were naming towns there.
  - rattypilgrim
    
    Antinous, how do I reply to a post that was in repy to mine when there’s no Reply button?
    Thanks.

Jaye Sunsurn

Its interesting the level of cognitive dissonance in society. And I don’t immediately mean a random person who is a member of a particularly large church in NC either. We all sometimes take particular points of view to heart without actually thinking them through in a full and logical manner. But flipping the circumstances Fox News finds a perfectly nice woman who might not be able to easily articulate herself on TV talk about how it should be okay for gays to marry and with pointed questions make her look like an idiot, it would be the same sort of thing. I don’t lay the blame on Mr. Cooper but this was kind of a cheap stunt. I live on the far left politically, but I also like to think that while not everyone is a scholar they are people, and its a shame that our political discourse has been co-opted by the quick non-thinking soundbite that has been engineered for us to accept and swallow without question. And the other side points, laughs, and dismisses not just the opinion but the people themselves. When we dismiss and denigrate the ‘other’ how long before electric fences actually do get used?

hymenopterid

That’s Fox News on a good day. Most of the time Bill O’Rilley will just call you names and turn off your mic. Then he’ll apologize to his audience for having you on in the first place.
Mitchell Glaser

Lots of German Jews had deeply interesting and civil discussions about how their society was “protecting” them while they were on the trains to the concentration camps. In California we rounded up our Japanese-American neighbors and sent them off to places we had never seen almost without any public objection, so don’t you even begin to tell me it could not happen here. Zero tolerance for talk of camps, no matter how abysmally inept and unprepared the speaker.
- Jonathan Roberts
  
  This. I’d say a lot of what the pastor was saying was hyperbole, his meaning was probably more along the lines of “you think your gay lifestyle is sustainable? Let’s see how well you’d do if only this kind of sex were available to your community.” He wasn’t actually proposing concentration camps; I’d say a lot of this kind of talk comes from the inexplicably common idea that conservative Christians are actually the downtrodden minority while teh gays are free to run the country. Basically, I’d say the woman was honestly surprised that people would take it as a serious threat, rather than typical posturing from the pulpit. I know when I was still a Christian, I literally had never spoken to someone I knew to be gay – you hardly hear anything about them other than from the Bible and sensationalist Christian publications. People need to actually be confronted with what they are saying, to see how ridiculous and hateful they sound. As it is, the only reason the woman herself can claim that ‘it’s all taken out of context’ is that she herself doesn’t believe that rational people would carry this out. She’s relying on the majority to balance out the church’s views. In a society where this kind of view was more common, there’s plenty of evidence that this proposal would find real political backing (and that the pastor would propose it more seriously).
  - Mitchell Glaser
    
    For the sake of argument, I will entertain for a moment the notion that the pastor was not actually proposing Camps for Queers (new indie band name?). First, tolerating this kind of talk plants the seed for the inevitable jagoff who will make the proposition in all seriousness. When AIDS first appeared there were many pastors who suggested just that. Second, if we are supposed to take it as metaphor, I would point out that the ugliness of her statements cannot be masked that way: it is like putting lipstick on a pig. Or earrings, as the case may be.
    - Jonathan Roberts
      
      I’m not suggesting toleration of his viewpoint. I just don’t think he or his congregation actually get how serious his statements are. He suggested in his message that he had actually proposed this idea to Congress (but couldn’t get it passed), which obviously he hasn’t. Regardless of how many people are in his congregation, he’s just living in his own little world surrounded by people who will agree with everything he says. I think a lot of these people haven’t had a serious conversation with someone outside their group about the other person’s beliefs or actually gotten to know a gay person. They’re basically the same as people who suggest declaring war on some ‘Arabic’ country like Afghanistan – the people they’re talking about are just concepts to them, and they’ve never been challenged to think in another way. The problem is, groups like this actually do make a difference and can (and do) cause huge damage, which is why ignoring them or attacking them won’t just make them go away – somehow they have to see for themselves what they are actually saying.
  - chgoliz
    
    So you’re saying her stance is that we’re supposed to know not to believe what a religious leader says from the pulpit?
    
    Well that certainly clears things up.
    - Jonathan Roberts
      
      No, it’s probably that if you had taken the time to listen to the whole sermon and allowed the ‘Spirit’ to lead you, you would have agreed with the pastor’s message as a whole. As it is, she doesn’t expect blind people like us to get the deeper meaning.
  - rattypilgrim
    
    The pastor said he figured out a way to get rid of gays. He did propose concentration camps. Hyperbole? Words have meaning. He said what he said and I, for one will take him at his word. In her neighborhood his view is common and does have political backing. I don’t know how more seriously the pastor could have proposed it.
    - dkedke
      
      Did you hear what the pastor said?
      
      Or did you hear one sentence quoted by a television personality whose entire purpose is to get people riled up?
      
      Cooper is clearly very good at his job.
  - rattypilgrim
    
    I hit the like button by mistake. Au contraire.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      You can re-hit it to unlike.
  - rattypilgrim
    
    OK, after reading all your posts I get what you’re saying, but I still think the pastor knew exactly what HE was saying and it transcended hyperbole. And since he’s like the pope in his little church his pathetic flock is in denial regarding the effects hate talk like his might have on their neighbors, relatives, and fellow human beings.
    - Jonathan Roberts
      
      You’re right, hyperbole isn’t a good word for it, although I’m not sure what the right one would be. I really don’t want to waste my time condemning these people. Of course they hold repulsive views that deserve to be condemned, but I’d rather understand why a group like that would express these viewpoints and then be surprised when they’re called out on them. Having grown up in a fairly conservative church (nothing like this one, thankfully) it was the way of thinking that turned me off rather than the actual beliefs. Basically, I’d say these more extreme churches work a bit like North Korea, but many conservative groups also follow similar patterns:
      
      Make sure that members are emotionally, physically and mentally ingrained into the group. Organize activities a few evenings a week and make sure that the social needs are all covered – mothers and toddlers, gym, youth groups, regular meetings etc. If all your social networks are inside the group, you will be less inclined to leave.
      
      See outside influences with suspicion, even to the level of family relationships. When you do meet with other groups, make sure this is seen as a witnessing activity and not casual socializing.
      
      Design services to encourage groupthink – have regular altar calls with emotional music, lighting, words etc. to link religious views with group allegiance. Make sure that people are expected to show active approval of whatever message is being preached from the pulpit. When the viewpoints of the pastor are criticized, you will see this as an attack on the group, rather than some of its teachings.
      
      Regularly talk about the answers to prayer, criticize those on the sidelines who don’t see positive answers as lacking in faith. Treat doubt and skepticism as a weakness.
      
      Have regular crises where the true believers are separated from the false ones – Harry Potter readers, people with TVs, whatever. The true believers will be cowed into accepting whatever new standard is and will be further invested in the group.
      
      There are plenty of other ways to achieve it and this is far from some new idea. However, I’d say there have to be some interesting effects of the same groupthink on the pastor. He is in his own little world and is not encouraged to think critically. He constantly hears positive reinforcement of his most strident comments and therefore continues to hold more and more outrageous opinions. He is in the same position as the church in that he doesn’t have anyone to challenge his views on issues such as homosexuality. If he has met homosexuals, this will have been somewhere like a gay pride rally or something where he is there to stand against this abomination.
      
      I think different churches are different in this regard, with some the pastor is clearly manipulating the congregation, but in others he’s as wrapped up in the groupthink as the rest of them.
http://www.genreville.com/ Josh Jasper

So basically, one side can call for genocide, and the other side has to be polite, or that might PROMPT REAL GENOCIDE? No, I don’t think it works that way.

If you stand up for someone calling for concentration camps, expect to get some media attention, and expect for it not to be friendly.

wandermarket

Oh god, they’re going to round up all the gay men and put them in the same place behind a fence? Sign me up!

vrplumber

And to save money, the right wing fence building community could just declare Mexico to be the GAY ZONE, and just build the fence on the Mexican border.

Two birds, one stone, and lots and lots of bigotry for everyone.
http://www.genreville.com/ Josh Jasper

Meh, I’ve been fo Fulton Street Faire. It’s…. OK.

Ethan Taliesin Houser

Anderson Cooper points out that in the Bible adulterers, those who curse their mothers and fathers, and promiscuous girls should be but to death, but goes on to ask if she thinks putting homosexuals in a fence to die is Christian? An interesting question would be to ask him if he thinks the New Testament negates the instructions of the Old Testament. All bullshit, but at least the new one teaches a little human compassion.

http://beepsandchirps.com/ Den Valik

A mighty wind does blow out of North Carolina

Crackermack

You can almost see the cognitive dissonance oozing out of her ears…

Atomicpanda

Any dumber and this woman would forget to breathe. Anderson would have had a more insightful and intelligent conversation if he’d chose to interview the church’s doorstop.

LikesTurtles

Apparently “it was all taken out of context and the words all twisted around” is now a magical incantation that a person must say anytime they’ve said something stupid outside of their peer group’s echo chamber. Rumor has it if you say it enough, it makes the previous words correct and not subject to scrutiny.

UncaScrooge

I haven’t listened to this thing yet, but at any point is the matter of identifying candidates for Gayschwitz discussed? I’m honestly curious as to whether they’ve thought this part through. For instance, my genitals are currently not located inside anyone else, so I would be accurately identified as Celibate.

That_Anonymous_Coward

Yes teh gays are the evil ones…
They get up in their pulpits and preach about how if your child seems different you should beat them, they scream how all the different people should be rounded up and shipped off, they scream if you don’t vote how I tell you to vote your going to hell, they make it perfectly ok to blame someone who doesn’t even know you for all of your problems in life.
Oh wait I think I got confused.
There is child rape and other savory things in their “good book” why they fuck isn’t it being burned to protect the children? Oh because no one can censor them like they want to censor everyone else. Do as I say not as I do… like all of the pastors living the high life on donations while telling people they need to save money to give to the church… or having affairs… or doing drugs with male prostitutes….

paux

I couldn’t tell, did she answer a single question?

http://twitter.com/MountAquaFresca MileHighBroheem

Not really.

http://www.markcrummett.com crummett

I left NC to get away from people like this.

ChicagoD

And now Cooper is talking to Chen Guangcheng. This guy’s days are absolutely all over the place.

http://www.facebook.com/mr.intj Scott Smith

This just goes to show that the Hitler and his Nazis weren’t something rare or unusual. They’re always with us; the trick is not to give them too much authority.

Antinous / Moderator

This just goes to show that the Hitler and his Nazis weren’t something rare or unusual.

It’s so important to remember that Hitler’s distinguishing characteristic wasn’t that he had the morals of a monster, it was that he was a really effective political organizer.
- Charlie B
  
  And that Germany, like America today, was a powderkeg waiting for an effective political organizer with a lit match.
  
  I frequently thank God that G. W. Bush was an idiot, and Karl Rove wasn’t actually in charge.
- travtastic
  
  People keep harping on the final solution! That’s not what he’s actually talking about. The fences are an extension of our loving arms. They’re electrified? Alright, yeah he said that, he meant electrifying. Sigh.
  - http://twitter.com/EsElQueso Adam Gillitt
    
    WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP TAKING THE POOR PASTOR OUT OF CONTEXT?

Ito Kagehisa

85 comments and I’m the first to point out that some cracker pastor stole Mark’s idea? You guys are slipping.

http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

Oh god, stop the fight STOP THE FIGHT her face is hamburger, he’s just scoring at will here

llamaspit

Something incoherent…something incoherent….because the Bible says so. There, that does it.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=710132451 TheWee Seal

Am I the only one that wants to see George Michael’s take on the “Electric Fence”??? 1000′s of Gay people… behind closed doors… Disco Balls…. Lasers…. Like C’mon! It writes itself!!! LOL :D
sorry for lowering the tone of righteous indignation. I agree she’s clearly got 2 brain cells in total and one of them, well, that’s been flickering on and off for a while now. Luckily There’s the Church to lead her in the right di…rect….ion… oh wait. He SAID WHAT?!?!

http://jimbeach.net mindfu

Like this woman, sometimes people have this odd relationship with over-the-top rhetoric they like. When called on it, they respond with “Well, it’s a joke of course” or “that wouldn’t really happen of course.” Some way to distance themselves from the impact of the statement or the implications of the belief.

It’s the feelings that are important, and not the facts. The facts will work themselves out, in accordance with the feelings. As long as the feelings are theirs, because their feelings are what’s really right.

Most of the people I see exhibiting this relationship to the factual direct meaning of words are conservatives, covering up for other conservatives.

http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

Anyone with half a brain will realise that you can’t wipe out a sexual preference by imprisoning it – it’s not an airborne disease, straight people will continue to make gay babies; however caging people like her might actually have an impact on the breeding of ignorant bigots.

Good idea, wrong target.

travtastic

You have to take a chance and try to step into these people’s shoes. From their warped perspective, homosexuality is a calculated assault on God’s will. A choice.

Foolish and dangerous as they are, they’re being completely, internally consistent. Scary gays turn kids gay, in their alternate reality. As much as this is obviously meant to summon images of concentration camps, it’s also meant to parallel quarantines.

You can’t break through these people with logic. They think that homosexuality is a disease (physical or memetic), and that this disease is literally Satan.
- dkedke
  
  >> You can’t break through these people with logic.
  
  You can’t break through either side with logic.
  
  That’s why the topic of discussion is a TV personality interviewing some idiot from bumble-fuck, and us watching how terrible of a debater she is.
  
  Why didn’t cooper interview the pastor instead? Maybe because he was trying to make a far less extreme point than his sentence implies, and it wouldn’t be worth airing.
  - travtastic
    
    There’s another side to concentration camps? Why has every one of your comments here been a vague, noncommital defense of these people talking about genocide?

http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

Next US president?

Antinous / Moderator

All those accusations of being The Elite that are hurled at people like Obama? Anderson Cooper’s mother is Gloria Vanderbilt.
- travtastic
  
  He hates precious metal standards so much that his hair is made of actual silver.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    But his arms are pure titanium.
- http://twitter.com/EsElQueso Adam Gillitt
  
  And his father is Bert Cooper!
- rattypilgrim
  
  Was Gloria Vanderbilt.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    She’s still alive.
    - rattypilgrim
      
      Don’t you hate it when people think you’re dead and you’re not? I stand corrected.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      This is her three years ago at age 84. God bless the ASPS.
  - nvlady
    
    And rattypilgrim, you standing corrected is a big point in all of this. You admitted you were wrong on something with the evidence of FACTS! :) I think that is something the woman in the video would never do.

Mister44

My god – they have to know what the train wreck this interview would be just by talking to the lady before hand. I guess if this is an average parishioner, no fucking wonder the dumb things coming from this church.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=name&id=1118134806 Doc_S

I… just can’t watch that much bigoted stupid. Watching that woman speak was like listening to someone get behind the wheel of a car with a standard gearbox and grind all the teeth off. Her poor little brain was desperately trying to hit the double-clutch, but she just couldn’t find second.

Rich Keller

Anderson seemed rather civil in this, relentless, but civil. As for Ms. Pritchard, I’m still trying to figure out which Far Side cartoon she stumbled out of.

Antinous / Moderator

I’m pretty sure that there was a Land of the Tiny-Brained.

swlabr

It is merely tribalism.

Religion serves more than one function. One is to channel our deep spiritual feelings…

Another is to confirm social bonds within a community. The spokesperson here reiterates the Pastor’s comments, not in an abstract rationally constructed sense, but simply in a way that affirms her status within the congregation.

Humans are both individual and social animals. The social community requires conformity, which sometimes demands the explicit rejection of individuals who do not conform. In return, the social community provides constructive support and affirmation to those who adhere to the doctrines…..

http://twitter.com/wi_ngo wingo shackleford

The blatant cherry-picking from the Old Testament is totally silly, which Anderson tried to point out. The thing that is scary to me is what appears to be a new trend for hardcore Christian bigots (or at least I just started noticing it) – this whole ‘blame it on God’ argument, which apparently seems like a good one to them.

I’ve seen it a lot. Basically you say “Well I PERSONALLY don’t hate anybody, but since the bible says, then God is obviously against homosexuality. I can’t argue against God’s word, it’s just a fact.” Believing that the Old Testament is the literal ‘word of God’ is troubling enough, but then to absolve yourself of any responsibility and say that you basically have no choice in the matter is completely psychotic. Either you’re lying about your personal feelings and using God as an excuse, or you disagree with God but feel you have no choice but to blindly follow his orders, nonetheless. And this causes no cognitive dissonance for these types, apparently. It’s simply a ‘fact’ that God hates gays, so what are you going to do? Your hands are tied. God may be a dick, but he IS God, so if you have to kill a gay, you have to kill a gay. Argument over. That’s kind of what this lady’s eyerolling is all about. “Ugh, you just don’t get it. We’re not saying we hate gays, you’re taking everything out of context. We’re just telling you what GOD thinks, duh. I rest my case!”

It’s just super creepy shit.

hymenopterid

That’s because you’re arrogant enough to think for yourself. If you just accept that only God knows what’s best for you then you can leave this depressing empathy stuff behind you.
CH

Well… as an atheist… I see it as an either or… either you _do_ believe in the god and do according to what it states, or you don’t. No cherry picking. I see most Christians at least around where I live cherry picking the best parts, and leaving out the rest. I have a hard time understanding how they still call themselves Christians when they really believe in just a tiiiiiiiiny fraction of the bible (heck, some of them don’t even believe in the Christian God… just some personal version of a “higher being”… fine… but…).

http://www.facebook.com/people/Esha-Smitts/100000628502865 Esha Smitts

People with this type of thinking are turning into the minority and will hopefully die off soon…

Aaron Andrade

Can’t we corral them with a big electrified fence in the meantime though?

http://twitter.com/qazwart David Weintraub

“Harping, harping, harping! On the electrified fence thing.”

I love that quote.

I guess we kind of “harp” on it because …I don’t know… IT WAS THE CENTRAL POINT OF THE SERMON.

It’d be like us harping on Hitler for the whole “kill the Jews” thingy. Hitler was a lot more than that, and to just “characterize” him based on this one little decision just belittles all of his other accomplishments. After all, he also invaded Poland!

And, no we don’t “lose the debate” for mentioning Hitler. That happened in the sermon when the pastor talked about building concentration camps.

Kerouac

Stacey Pritchard could get her own talk show on Fox with the level of idiocy she showed in this clip.

Green Ghost

Unless I missed where it was commented on, did nobody here catch that she also seems to believe that adulterers should be put to death? There goes 90% of the evangelical clergy!

penguinchris

On Talk of the Nation a few weeks ago they had some anti-gay-marriage people on (debating against pro-gay-marriage people). They were all poorly-educated blowhards (one was a church leader of some sort) and the people who called in in support of a gay marriage ban were even worse.

That I don’t mind – it gives you a chance to ridicule them like Cooper does here, right?

But they didn’t. They gave them their say and while the host sounded irritated, he only corrected someone once and didn’t ask any hardball questions or call anyone out for a BS answer (the whole thing was BS answers). I had to shut it off because it was infuriating.

It was a few days later that NPR announced they would stop giving equal time to both sides of an issue indiscriminately.

This type of informed ridiculing of idiotic ultra-conservative views needs to continue. I guess that’s a slippery slope toward ridiculing any view you don’t agree with, so I’ll reiterate: I only refer to the idiotic views.

http://twitter.com/chrisjimson chris jimson

For all the talk of “the media elite” I hear from conservatives, she was the one that seemed elitist here– constantly rolling her eyes at very simple questions and giving non-answers that kind of implied “I’m better than you, it’s beneath me to even talk to you.”

nvlady

I just love how she defaulted to “Again, you are missing the point’ any time Cooper actually made her *think* about the stance of her position. She didn’t want the contradiction to be pointed out to her because that would make her *think* instead of ‘feel’ or ‘believe’ what is right.

This is what irks me in American discourse, putting belief on par with facts.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=733931455 Jennifer LeBlanc

yes! lets keep cutting the education funding! pretty please? cause I just adore suffering these fools daily. Maybe she was upset because of something her sister wife did. EVOLVE ALREADY.

http://www.facebook.com/JRinPV John Russell

Dumber than shit, but she’s still a voter, God help you all !!

hymenopterid

Dumb people I can accept. There are plenty of kind and gentle dumb people out there. It’s the self righteous hatred that we should be concerned about.

But yeah dumb and angry do tend to go together sometimes, I’ll give you that.

Zachary_Bos

Am I wrong in thinking this comment of this pastor has been misconstrued? As I understand it, he was illustrating an argument: since behavior which precludes procreation is unnatural, and homosexuals (he’s arguing) so confined would not procreate, therefore homosexuality is unnatural. He was not advocating that homosexuals (for the sake of the children or otherwise) actually be so confined — of course, his absolute obtuseness, his utter tone-deafness to the genocidal freight of such an illustration, indicates that whatever his intended meaning, he’s a bigoted homphobe.

As I watched this woman try to alert Cooper to the misconstrual — “everyone keeps harping about the fence!” (when actually her pastor was attempting to make a point *other* than that ‘deviants’ should be rounded up and fenced-up) — I wanted to take her aside and explain to her how to explain herself better. Not that any degree of improvement in her communicative skills (or the pastor’s) would have changed the audacious tactlessness of the choice to use THAT metaphor, or have made their arguments any more persuasive.

mlvanlancker

You are wrong.
Roman Berry

…since behavior which precludes procreation is unnatural…

Only thing is, it isn’t. Homosexuality exists in the animal kingdom. And a lot of behaviours which preclude procreation are acceptable even to the most conservative of people. Nuns vow to remain chaste. Men get vasectomies. Women have their tubes tied. See the flaw in your assertion?
- Zachary_Bos
  
  Nooop — not my assertion. I was just reconstructing the (ignorant) pastor’s argument. You’re preaching to the choir, my friend. (Though, keep on preachin’.)
- Nytespryte
  
  That’s not quite true either though, some are completely against birth prevention, including sterilization. And many chuchs don’t have or believe in celibate orders and the really anti-catholic ones think anything the catholics do is evil. There are churchs where everyone is pretty much expected to marry and procreate, although granted being unmarried is not quite considered a sin itself so you can get away with spinsterhood but it’s still frowned upon.
atimoshenko

since behavior which precludes procreation is unnatural and homosexuals (he’s arguing) so confined would not procreate, therefore homosexuality is unnatural

Huh? Any sexually reproducing organisms so confined (males and females forcefully isolated from one another) would not procreate. And how does a forcing a particular arrangement on groups of individuals illustrate anything about those groups? Not to mention that the first assumption does not pass even the most cursory of examinations – claiming “not reproducing is unnatural” is in no way more reasonable than just coming out and claiming “homosexuality is unnatural”.

Creating a concentration camp for homosexuals can only ever be claimed to achieve two purposes – isolating them from the general population (the way one quarantines contagious disease carriers), and making them suffer (the way one incarcerates criminals).

So does the pastor wish to punish homosexuals for who they are (thus seeing them as not being created equal), or does he view homosexuality the same way he does ebola and cooties?

I do not see any other point that the argument could convey, whatever the context. There is no other argument or point that can be logically extracted from what he said.

senorglory

Sarah Palin’s put on some weight since I last saw her.

Roman Berry

What a pleasant woman. Cooper treated her with great patience and respect but when he thanked her for appearing at the end, she looked like she was sucking on lemons.

anik

‘GABY’!!!!
That’s great.
boingboing i <3 you

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000444450214 Genre Slur

And yet more background
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/sermons/homorights.html

Capital_7

Another six-toed, mouth breathing mud eater. Where do they all come from?

rattypilgrim

A church.

hug h

There were moments when she was obviously impressed with her own responses. Then I saw glimmers of disdain for Anderson. Then she got a bit huffy about people twisting the preachers words around and I thought- who does this woman remind me of? That’s it! A less attractive, more vacuous, somewhat less polished Sarah Palin. Run for office lady.

http://redesigned.com redesigned

judging by how stupid these people are, i *hope* they don’t realize that they are putting up the fence from the inside until it is too late. ;-P

Antinous / Moderator

Like painting yourself into a corner, only with high voltage.

flickerKuu

Can we just sell the South to Mexico or something?

It’s really no fun to debate with stupid people, they just don’t understand the rules.

chgoliz

Hey! What did the Mexicans ever do to us that we would do such a horrible thing to them?

http://khanneasunztu.wordpress.com/ KhanneaSuntzu

I think she could sue Anderson for exploiting her mental retardation. IF she were able to explain this concept to a lawyer, that is.

http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers

Totally missed opportunity to ask if it would be a camp camp.

Palomino

When I told my dad I was gay, he kicked me out of the house and forbade my two brothers to associate with me. I was 17, they were 16 and 11. Strangely, years later I understood my dad’s reasoning, however skewed.

Many years later, when my brothers were miserable, married, divorced, married divorced, four kids each, alimony, child support and basically angry, they would call me and live through me. I was single, not strapped down by my mistakes, traveling the world, taking whatever job I wanted, attending all sorts of certification programs and going to University. I had a house, two duplexes, a truck, a classic car (Rocket 88), a vintage motorcycle and Chris Craft picnic launch (boat). Everything I owned was old and I took the time to make it all new and valuable, I made money on everything I touched, I had the time. My sad brothers would both tell me how lucky I was and how jealous they were of my life style. Each one had a child that ran away and found safety at my home, much to their and my father’s relief.

My point: Most men are hedonistic by nature, and Gay men are the most hedonistic cultural group on the planet; why wouldn’t straight men be jealous, and women too? That’s what my dad was trying to preserve, men make babies too. Maybe this is what the pastor meant, my dad is one too, not a pastor, but an elder.

Bill

No the pastor meant he would take away all your wonderful things and throw you behind an electrified fence to be until you died.
http://www.plan8.tv Roanhouse

Hedonism is something you choose to do. Being gay isn’t. Also most of the gay guys i know who are “Hedonistic” act so as if they are using it as self medication to make up for a shitty childhood, parents that kicked them out just like you, or because well … they are really just stereotypical lets buy shoes type of girls. But in the end its buying things or doing things that hits the endorphine pleasure button, just like any drug addict does to help stop the depression of life.

Hedonism = a form of self medication.

But there are plenty of gay guys i also know who are not hedonists, and they didn’t have shitty parents and grew up and supportive communities. And no they are not hedonist. They practice moderation like any other well balance adult, they just happen to be gay.

traalfaz

Oddly enough, I’d like to see hateful bigots die out. Perhaps we can use her idea after all.

http://twitter.com/TylerJDeAngelo tyler deangelo

I think Anderson Cooper is a little to blame here. This woman is obviously mentally handicapped in some capacity, possibly of a result of her own family’s figurative fence which surrounds the cousins who procreate together. So it does seem kinda mean to give someone like her, in her condition a platform to speak just so we can laugh at her.

chgoliz

No, not mentally handicapped.

The average IQ is 100. “Normal” range is around 90-110, and defined mental retardation starts around 70.

What you’re seeing is someone who has not sufficiently exercised her brain through education, research, and cognitive thought. Instead, she has subsisted on a lifetime of mental junk food.

Gary61

Number of points ….
1. Accents are regional and learned behavior – you learn to talk like your parents, peer groups, etc. so as to be part of’ your local group.
2. Accents can be ‘un-learned’ – just takes time and patience (and a good ear).
3. Accents have nothing to do with intelligence levels, EVERYTHING to do with acceptance by your peer group.
4. This heavy (dare I say fat?), middle-aged excuse for a thinking human being is simply parroting what her peer group (apparently) believes – withOUT putting her brain to work on all the inconsistencies.
5. The whole ‘fence them in’ thing wouldn’t work for obvious reasons – nuke them from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.

snagglepuss

If this doesn’t prove that religion is aimed at stupid fucking morons, I don’t know what does.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Paul-Cryer/100003757883984 Paul Cryer

This reminds me of my favourite bible verse. Proverbs 23:9 ‘Don’t try to talk sense to a fool – (s)he can’t appreciate it’.

bo1n6bo1n6

I am a straight man born from a gay dad… They CAN reproduce, and their children won’t automatically be gay.(not that it even matters)

Andy Simmons

Christ, what an asshole.

Anderson Cooper quizzes supporter of pastor who proposes concentration camps for gay people

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