True North

That's Politically Correct, not Personal Computer.

Now that I have cleared that up, I want to get into a scary (and über controversial) social phenomenon that is sweeping our culture and society right now. I guess you can rack this one up to culture instead of politics again, as honestly I am burnt to a crisp on politics right now.

So let's look at homosexuals. Yes, the "dreaded" gays *gasp!*...

Disclaimer alert:
Ok, first and foremost, let's get one thing straight (no pun intended). I am not homophobic. I never have been, I never will be. I am of the mindset of "to each their own" and if somebody can find love in this life, then good on them so long as that love is of the human type. I do have some strong opinions on certain gay topics (such as gays in the military), but that stems 100% from objective reasoning and has nothing to do with gay rights. If, at any time during the course of this post, any of you think I am homophobic or have some issue with the gay population, you can take it to the arches because it is you that has lost your ability to be objective here, not me.
End disclaimer.

Getting to it, there are two topics de'jour that are bothering me right now. The first is the hate crime legislation issue. Since I have discussed my stance on hate crimes ad nauseum, I'm going to skip that and only say one thing about it: a homosexual's life is nor more or less important than a heterosexual's life, so punishment should not vary based on the sexual orientation of the victim no matter what.

With that said, it's on with the local issue. For those who don't know, a while back a St. Paul school board member, Al Oertwig, was charged with looking at child porn on a public computer in a school library. He was caught by another patron and and was turned in. Earlier this month he was cleared of the child porn charges, as it turned out the "erotica" he was looking at just had people that looked like children. Of course, it doesn't change the fact that he was looking at porn on a school library computer and that he worked with children. The two usually don't mix, nor should they.

Now for a little bit of controversy, add a dash of spice and shake... Al Oertwig is also openly gay which means you can bet he wasn't watching boy on girl action in the library that day. But then again, porn is porn regardless of what kind it is, but it is this added spiciness that has opened this issue up into an absolute nightmare.

You see, what has come into play here is that the various supporters of Oertwig are more concerned with the issue of his sexuality than the issue of his watching porn on a school computer, and they are raising quite a stink about the fact that "conservatives" are being critical of him. They are leveraging the fact that he is gay to battle the evil homophobes in this game. Just ask my counterpart on True North, Tom Swift, about this sort of thing. He posted about it in his own blog yesterday, where he muses that people are demanding that he retract his statements about Oertwig. In his post, Tom links back to "Minnesota Monitor" which is something of a Minnesota liberal "woe is us" site where the spineless can get together and reaffirm each other as to how bad things really are. Anyway, in this particular article that Tom links back to, the liberals lament the fact that Mr. Oertwig was cleared but there is still prejudice against him (which they attribute whole-heartedly to his being gay). Yeah right.

So let's pick apart some of the more wild aspects of this article. According to them:

"The media attention to his case gave rise to wild accusations and misperceptions because Oertwig is a member of an unpopular minority: gay men."

Ok, so they focus on the "gay men" aspect of this, but pay no mind to the fact that this guy was a school board member who was charged with working with children and that he was still watching porn on a public school library computer. This isn't a gay issue. This is a pervert issue with facts that are really pretty straight forward. In the same WCCO article that talked about him being cleared, they still concede that

"[a]lthough police determined there was no child pornography on the computer Oertwig was using, investigators found a folder identified with Oertwig's Metro State ID number that contained 'adult erotica."

However, the Minnesota Monitor article doesn't mention that. They do, however, make mention of the supposed "conservatives opposed to homosexuality" and fume over the fact that there have been "[n]o retractions, no apologies for smearing a public servant."

In particular, they go after Tom Swift (who coincidentally ran as a Republican-endorsed candidate for the school board) and faulted him for maintaining certain prejudices that would they claim would "discount him from election" if he were to run again for school board. This on, however, is a real head scratcher, because again this isn't a gay issue as the MN Monitor is portraying it as. This is an issue of a man who is involved with children watching porn in public. As Tom puts it from his own blog:

"Al is not someone I'd let within a mile of my kids (that'd be an opinion). He's been implicated in no fewer than three creepy incidents involving his 'extra-curricular activities' during his tenure (a fact..see how that works?)."

That doesn't sound like homophobe prejudice to me. That sounds like a parent who is concerned over the fact that a school official is doing some creepy things in public. Hell, I'm not even a parent and I can still empathize with Tom here. This is not the sort of thing that you would want a school official doing, period. Who cares if the guy is gay or not? However, that is not the agenda that the liberal PC crowd is pushing. They would rather peg people like Tom as being homophobic than acknowledge the fact that Oertwig was in the wrong. You then have to ask yourself a simple question: would there be this sort of stink being raised if Oertwig were heterosexual and just enjoying some good old man and woman erotica in the public school library? I'll let you answer that one.

However, the story just gets more and more bizarre. Much to my glee, there is a war of words exchanged in the comments section of the article. In it, Tom makes an attempt to defend himself and address the "creepy" aspect of Oertwig, and the author, Andy Birkey, simply retorts back with more "you're a homophobe" rhetoric. In fact, and much to my surprise, he even asserts that:

"Surely you are aware by now that the term 'homosexuals' is rarely, if ever used by LGBT people to describe themselves. It's been that way for a long time, and is considered by many to be derogatory."

What the hell is that supposed to mean? There is nothing wrong with calling a homosexual just that; unless of course you're looking to make a statement about an evil homophopbe conservative who's going after "a man with a long history of service on the St. Paul School Board."

But you see, this is a problem that is growing very widespread in our community today. Being homosexual (oh, excuse me, LGBT) seems to be a universal "get out of jail free" card when it comes to other topics. Instead of dealing with the issue at hand (i.e. Oertwig viewing porn in public while holding a position as a school official), the community has shifted things to the "he's just a misunderstood gay man trying to make it in a gay-men hating world." The priorities have some shifted here, and while there should be outrage over this guy's action, the focus has instead focused on his sexuality. As I asked before, would this be an issue if the guy were straight? No, of course not. He would have been drummed out of existence and nobody would have risen up to coddle him. There would be no demands for retractions, there would be no heated debates about allegations... He would have been skewered and thrown to the wolves - and rightly so considering what was actually done here.

The gay card is not a freedom to be a pervert card. It is not something that should be played when you're caught doing something you shouldn't have been doing in the first place. Tom hits it right out of the park by saying:

"Each time he gets caught 'with his pants down' he plays the poor, downtrodden gay guy...'shucks, I'm just doin' the best I can out here for the kids and all of these hateful homophobes just won't leave me alone.'"

Sorry, but this time Al can't claim to be the victim of a fallacy, and it is reprehensible that dirtbags like Andy Birkey run out to defend him on the basis that he's being targeted for being gay. It doesn't work like that. Suck it up and deal with the fact that the problem with somebody like Oertwig isn't that he is openly gay, or even that he tries to push for homosexual agendas in public school. Hell, even Tom says "[i]f Al is going to run as the gay candidate for school board, let him run as the gay candidate." That isn't, and hasn't been the issue. The issue is simply that Oertwig screwed up, did some things he shouldn't have done, and got caught. As a school official who was charged with working with children, Al shouldn't have been doing that sort of thing anyway, but the fact that he got caught simply means that it is time to concede defeat and get on with life.

(This article is cross posted from A [sometimes] Logical View of the Illogical, where comments are welcome and encouraged)