Great. A Bob Jones graduate and teacher, who says things like this: “Homosexuality is not inborn biologically, just as incest and bestiality are not inborn. Studies have show that thousands of homosexuals have been set free from this sin.” This, guy, as of next week, is on the HHS panel for dealing with AIDS and HIV.
Fucking wonderful. He and Bob Jones University have also apparently hidden away some of his more egregious web material and speech transcripts.
Well, then there’s this: those harmless sodomy laws at work: people are still trying to use them to bar gay people from government jobs like judgeships. Luckily Virginia wised up and voted this lady in anyway.
But then there’s this, trying to prove that she’s either a hypocrite or a criminal:
“I don’t think there’s any homosexual without the ‘sexual’. In other words, this idea of identity without actions is nonsense, it’s non-existent,” Knight said. “To forge an identity based on engaging in a wrongful activity such as homosexuality shows, at the least, lack of judgment.”
Here’s a bit more about Mr. Thacker. He’s called AIDS a “gay plague” and “AIDS was something that bad people had to worry about”. He’s also called homosexuality a “deathstyle” and believes that Christians can “rescue” gays.
I’m with Homebrew, on this one. It’s not so disturbing that he has these views, many people do, it’s very disturbing that the Bush administration did so little homework on this guy that they thought he should serve on this committee.
To be fair, I don’t think Bush supports the views of the extremist bigots he appoints. I think the problem is that he doesn’t get it, he doesn’t understand just how appaling those views are. He thinks it’s a minor issue that can be ignored.
Jerry Thacker’s selection to an AIDS panel must have appeared reasonable to the person who selected him, because Thacker and his wife both are HIV positive. I agree that his homophobia makes him a terrible choice, and I’m relieved that he resigned.
However Bush deserves credit for appointing a number of “out” gays to various positions.
what qualifications did he bring to the panel, other than the fact that he was HIV positive (and, BTW, had contracted it via his wife who’d gotten it through a blood transfusion, IIRC, one of the lesser likely means of transmission presently)??
My guess is that the Bush administration knew perfectly well what his qualifications were, and he never really expected him to be placed on the panel. By nominating him, however, he send a message to the fundie right that he is on the same page with them on this issue. Later on, WorldNetDaily and CNS News will try to make it look like he was kept off the panel by the Evil Liberal Conspiracy.
From the article in the OP:
Maybe it’s my inherent distrust of anyone who spouts the sort of hateful rhetoric Thacker spouts…but does this set off anyone else’s bullshit detector? It just seems like an awfully pious way to contract HIV, and a fairly unlikely one. (Certainly possible, of course, but not likely.)
I hear it all the time from the fundies: “we’re not doing anything against homosexuals.” Excuse me, but do you think it’s political pressure from the rest of us that keeps those laws on the books?
You know, this whole thread makes me wonder just how reprehensible a politician’s viewpoints have to be before the average Joe in the citizenry who generally agrees with the politican’s party stop defending him.
I mean, on both sides of the political aisle, whenever a politico or politico’s appointment does or says something most in the mainstream would consider “bad,” there are all sorts of people falling all over themselves to defend that person, saying statements were taken out of context, or points of view repudiated. It just makes it feel all the more odd, to me, when NO ONE (except maybe radical fringes) steps up to talk about how unfairly treated this person was, especially on a politically aware message board like this…
His biography here makes him sound like an ideal member of a Presidential AIDS panel – an AIDS sufferer, who is an expert in marketing, has written a book about AIDS, who does work in AIDS prevention, and whose message has been presented in churches, pastor’s seminars, at private and public school assemblies, for civic groups and on college campuses. However, I’m very glad he’s off the panel.