Hate group lackeys are engaging in their usual whining over the resignation of 1984 Olympic gold medalist Peter Widmar as the chef de mission for the 2012 US Olympic team. Widmar came under fire after being named to the post for his activities as an anti-gay activist during the Prop 8 fight in California. The hate groups are, of course, acting as if his resignation was the work of outside homoseckshul activists, but the truth is that, when his past activities came to light, it caused a lot of problems within the US Olympic Committee [USOC]:
In U.S. Olympic circles, there was concern that Vidmar wasn’t just expressing his personal opinions on a controversial issue, but that he had moved into an activist role on an issue involving civil rights.
When the Tribune story broke, reaction was nearly immediate — and almost entirely negative — within the USOC. Aimee Mullins, the former president of the Women’s Sports Foundation and chef de mission for the 2012 U.S. Paralympic Games team, said she was “concerned and deeply saddened” about Vidmar’s past actions.
“The Olympic movement is about promoting equity for all,” she said.
Indeed. What “pro-family” wingnuts don’t understand, and will never understand, is that their beliefs on this issue are very quickly becoming socially disgraceful, much in the way white supremacy is socially disgraceful. If Peter Widmar had, say, given $82,000 in order to buy David Duke’s mailing list, like Tony Perkins did, it would be just the same. They are certainly entitled to cling to backwoods, uneducated, reality-rejecting views — that is their right — but their “religious freedom” doesn’t call for the rest of us to somehow pretend their views aren’t disgusting and hateful. And indeed, there will be times when they are not qualified to hold certain positions. In this instance, Vidmar donated money to and participated in causes that had the sole purpose of hurting gay people and their families. That’s decidedly not what the Olympics is all about.
Here’s Porno Pete, complaining:
“I wish that Peter Vidmar had not resigned,” laments Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH). “I wish that he’d stood up for his right to defend marriage, and I wish that he’d forced them to fire him if that’s what they were going to do, because that would engender the sort of national discussion that we need against this escalating intolerance against…opposition to gay marriage.”
I know, it’s so awful. This escalating intolerance against people who hate an entire minority group simply because their third-grade reading of an old book says they should. Terrible. Here’s Porno Pete, still complaining and having his facts completely wrong:
And he disagrees with openly homosexual Olympic figure skater Johnny Weir, who describes Vidmar’s position on marriage as “disgraceful.”
“How dare he seek to marginalize Peter Vidmar, who simply stood up for his beliefs,” LaBarbera contends. “Most people believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. The radical redefinition of marriage still does not have majority support in this country, despite the huge media blitz in support of it.”
Porno Pete apparently hasn’t followed the news lately, because the last three major polls on the question show that marriage equality now has over 50% support in the United States. Now, I understand that Peter probably has seen these polls, and I understand that Peter and his ideological cohorts are in the beginning stages of a full blown episode of denial that will likely last until they die. This is what happens to bigots when their views are no longer socially acceptable to people with three numbers in their IQs. I am quite sure that the few remaining members of the Ku Klux Klan desperately cling to the belief that people still agree with them, but that they’re just afraid to say it. This is where the anti-gay hate movement is going. It’ll be a while before they’re all the way there, but the fact that our support is now at 50+1 and growing every day, while their ideas are, quite literally, dying off, has got to be stinging for them.
From the same article, Maggie Gallagher takes a far more victimized tack:
Maggie Gallagher, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, does not fault Vidmar for his decision. She told CitizenLink that the Olympic medalist’s entire career and livelihood were at risk when the “gay rights movement decided to go after him.”
Uh huh, denial. They simply can’t accept that, just as most of the opposition to King and Spalding defending DOMA came from their own associates and clients, who were horrified that such an esteemed law firm would defend such blatantly unconstitutional bigotry, the people calling for Vidmar’s resignation were not just gay rights activists, but also those within the USOC, the very people whose job it is to defend the Olympic ethic. Sorry, “pro-family” haters. Your beliefs just don’t fit within that metric.
