Loathsome

Following up on the Quote of the Day...

Ann Coulter addressed Homocon, a gay conservative organization, this past weekend on the topic of marriage equality. You may remember that she got in trouble with her right-wing friends at World Net Daily for accepting the invitation, but based on what she said, WND will probably welcome her back.

First, she ran down the stereotypical stand-up comedian's list of reasons, including that lacking the legal right to marriage allows the less-committed partner to weasel out of it. But in a more serious note, she parroted the losing arguments of the lawyers supporting California's Prop 8 and told the crowd that the reason she opposes (and they should oppose) same sex marriage is that it is strictly for procreation.

In one of a series of racially insensitive remarks that pervaded her speech, Coulter added, "Marriage is not a civil right. You're not black." It was part of a larger argument on which she later elaborated, telling the crowd that the 14th Amendment only applies to African-Americans and that it does not, in fact, apply to women, LGBT people or other minorities.

[...]

Several attendees, who requested anonymity, were also startled by her racially-tinged humor: in addition to her comments about civil rights, she also accused single parents of breeding muggers and blamed the decline in marriage in the African-American community on welfare, "the subsidization of single parenting" and overly liberal child support laws. Coulter's comments about civil rights being "only for the blacks" rubbed many people the wrong way as well, though her joke about oppression and the amount of money in the gay community compared to other minority communities ("Blacks must be looking at the gays saying, 'Why can't we be oppressed like that?'") garnered plenty of laughs from the well-heeled crowd.

GOProud's executive director, Jimmy LaSalvia, told TPM after the speech, "I don't agree with Ann Coulter about gay marriage, but there was a real conversation here. That's what we're trying to start."

I used to think that Ann Coulter was some kind of an act; that her shtick was to be the Andrew Dice Clay of right-wing punditry. Or maybe that her nastiness was shaped by pain, and she was to be pitied. But she's an adult; she's capable of being responsible for what comes out of her mouth in public, and looking for some way to excuse her behavior is pointless. Some people are just assholes, and she's one of them.