Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Nothing like a little gay-bashing in the morning to start my day just right. I got up early today to head to breakfast with a friend before going to hear Arianna speak at Georgetown. And my radio went off at 7:30am and was set to DC 101, the local rock station. The DJ is named Elliot, the show "Elliot in the Morning." Well, in about ten minutes, I got to listen to about ten different fag jokes (he just made another one, that would be 25 minutes of gay jokes now). Oh, he didn't say the word "fag," he just made repeated jokes about gays, said how something was "so gay," and then proceeded to ask if famed interior designer Nate Berkus was "hoo hoo." When his sidekick said "yes, his partner Fernando was killed during the tsunami in Asia," Elliot responded, "I love that song! Ha ha ha!" He then proceeded to play the Abba song Fernando, cackling the whole way through. Get it, Nate's dead partner was named Fernando so that'll be the latest in a string of gay jokes this morning - dead Fernando. Ha ha ha ha ha.

I know there are bigger issues out there, but you know, the hate in our culture, from CNN host Glenn Beck to Don Imus to Rush Limbaugh's "Barack the Magic Negro" to fag jokes to the religious right's non-stop attacks on gays, to the Bush administration's non-stop attack on people like Mary Cheney, it just doesn't stop. And people wonder where hate comes from. It comes from the culture at large. We mock people, we belittle them, we make fun of them for being "hoo hoo," we mock their dead loves ones, we mock presidential candidates for being "negroes," and we wonder why kids grow up to be hateful.

Congrats, DC 101. You guys are pigs.