Here are two recent attempts to take on homophobes which are worth seeing, though this first one is frankly a bit of a train wreck:
Check Out This Irish Senator's Awesome Smack Down of Russia's Anti-gay Propaganda Ban: VIDEO |News | Towleroad Check Out This Irish Senator's Awesome Smack Down of R... Check Out This Irish Senator's Awesome Smack Down of Russia's Anti-gay Propaganda Ban: VIDEO -- News |-- David Norris, Gay Rights, News, Russia View on www.towleroad.com Preview by Yahoo This isn't really the fault of the person defending gay rights, Senator David Norris of Ireland in this extended clip from Russia Today. Norris is a wonderful and hugely entertaining man. He fought and won the case to decriminalise homosexuality in Ireland and has been an important voice for human rights across all areas - as he says in this clip he doesn't even talk about homosexuality all that much and it seems he came to RT assuming he was going to talk about Gaza. But he's confronted with an interviewer who is perhaps sort of well meaning in her own way, but is incredibly confused and fixated on a few things and cannot see how prejudiced this makes her from the start. It is almost painful to see, yet it is the reason this clip is worth seeing because I think this sort of confused prejudice that conflates homosexuality with Western propaganda and sees all sorts of problems coming from it like falling population is exactly the sort of argument I can see similar TV anchors making here in India. The clip is worth seeing as a way to make us think how to counter it. Norris, I have to say, could do a slightly better job of it. He misses the obvious retort to her constantly harping on about how gay couples have fewer children by pointing out that its because of all the problems they face when they try to have children by surrogacy, or adopt children unwanted by straight people, which is sort of where this programme starts. He and she just talk past each other on the population decline issue, and there are a few other moments where this happens. But really, who can blame him, because he's dealing with her nonsense in real time and you can see he can hardly believe what he's hearing and there are few great moments where he calls her out on it and says she's talking lies or nonsense. Or there's his wonderful dismissal of this weird term she keeps using 'homonormativity' and towards the end he clearly decides just to give up and have fun, and starts talking about Putin riding around barechested and you can see the Russian anchor nearly have a heart attack on air at that point. Norris just lets go his inner camp old man and its great. (I was lucky enough to meet Norris in Ireland some years back and he was a blast! I called his office out of the blue and he agreed to meet almost at once, and showed me around Leinster House, the Irish Parliament, while pointing out to me in very loud whispers all the scandals that the different Irish Parliamentarians who were walking around were involved in. He was a real and very charming character and one who has used his personality and intellect greatly for the general good). As a corrective to that nutty interview, check this short clip from Australia. Its worth seeing just for the contrasting impressions you get of the two people involved - Bob Katter, an Australian politician who has been very homophobic in the past and really looks like he has a boomerang stuffed up his backside, its like he's almost ill at have to talk about this at all, and Josh Thomas, a young and quite happily camp actor and TV writer, who goes quite adorably - to use one of his own terms - manic and starts waving his arms around. Its worth noting that Katter is not the standard hardline anti-progressive homophobe. As Thomas says, he's actually done really good things, supporting his farmer constituents, and also Aboriginals, not a position many Australian right wing politicians have taken. But this is what makes his homophobia and, even more, his refusal to apologise for past open expressions of it so mystifying. Its like he knows - and has even almost admitted it - that he was wrong in the past, but he just can't bring himself to do what Thomas tells him to do (adorably!) which is just say sorry: Bob Katter | Towleroad Gay News Hub Bob Katter | Towleroad Gay News Hub Bob Katter Hub. Towleroad's ongoing posts on Bob Katter, General interest coverage from a gay point of view. View on www.towleroad.com Preview by Yahoo
