Sarah Palin lamented ESPN’s decision to fire baseball analyst Curt Schilling for sharing several memes offensive to transgender people in a Thursday morning Facebook post…. “ESPN continues to screw up,” the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential…nominee wrote, along with a link to a Hollywood Reporter article on Schilling’s termination…. Palin also shared a meme along the lines of those that led to Schilling’s dismissal. In the left panel, a white man labeled a “victim” complains about homophobic people intruding on his “safe space,” while the right panel features a young girl who is a labeled a “bigot” for complaining about a “40-year-old man wearing a dress in the girl’s restroom.”…. Palin has come to the conservative sports commentator’s defense before. After he was suspended from ESPN last baseball season for sharing a meme comparing Nazis to Muslims, Palin accused the network of buying into “the propaganda of ISIS.”
So this is the reasoned, rational conversation that some of the American Taliban have determined best serves their agenda? Defending legalized hatred of and discrimination against transgender individuals is deemed a perfectly acceptable and reasonable position? Good, God-fearing Christians are merely protecting vulnerable women and children against the predatory instincts of imaginary “men in dresses”…even as they ignore the very real and far more credible threat presented by pedophile Catholic priests?
The problem for too many on the Far Right is that they tend to view the world through an “us against them” filter- “them” in most cases being anyone not enlightened enough to think, believe, live, and/or love as they do. Perhaps it’s that their fear centers are hyper-developed, which would account for seeing enemies- ISIS/ISIL, Iran, Muslims, the LGBT community, atheists, Liberals, etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam- around every corner and down every street. They seem far more capable of and willing to strike out and destroy anyone perceived as being The Other than with exercising even the barest minimum of love and compassion.
The truth is that most transgender individuals, as with the larger LGBT community, simply want to be left alone to live their lives in a manner that feels most authentic and genuine. It’s not about world domination, or molesting children, or forcibly converting our precious snowflakes to The Homosexual Agenda ©. It’s about people who simply want to be able to live and love and get through life with the same rights and freedoms that accrue to any other Good and Decent American ©.
Seeing nothing wrong with or unusual about defending homophobia, hatred, and bigotry means more than anything that your world must be a very sad, angry, and thoroughly depressing place. If you can in all seriousness argue that Curt Schilling is a victim…well, I truly feel sorry for you. Your bitterness and anger blind you to the things that make life truly unique and awesome.
