On your trip through Townhall.com today, will you read every single word of every single column? Or will you take one literary taste here, another taste there, and try to cover as much ground as possible in the limited time you have? I’ll confess … I read so many news stories and so many opinion columns every day – both before and during my radio show – that I really don’t have time to digest every word and paragraph of every column. I’ll read enough to get the gist of the columnist’s thoughts, cherry pick a fact or two, and move on. I suspect many of you might do the same.
Now several months ago I generated a little puddin’ storm here about university student in Georgia named Jennifer. Jennifer was working on an advanced degree in counseling to pursue a career as a school counselor. The trouble started when she expressed the opinion that homosexuality was a choice – that homosexuals chose to be gay and that was simply that. While I’m sure her opinion cheered a lot of fundamentalist zealots, it turned out to be somewhat upsetting to university officials. As I remember the story, they demanded that she undergo some sort of sensitivity training about homosexuality if she wished to remain in that particular graduate program. I sided with the university. First … I didn’t like the idea of some young male student someday wandering into Jennifer’s own counseling office with doubts and concerns about his sexuality, only to be told: “Hey .. .this is a choice. You’re straight unless you chose to be a homosexual. Just choose to be straight and your problem is solved.” Second, I felt that the school had every right to protect the reputation of its counseling graduate program by weeding out candidates who harbor this “homosexuality is a choice” nonsense. Would a medical school tolerate a student who expressed a belief that babies are delivered by storks? If you believe that way, fine. But don’t expect don’t expect a university to be thrilled about its diploma hanging on the wall of someone pushing this “homosexuality is a choice” nonsense on young minds.
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OK … let’s get to the meat of this here.
There’s a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington with whom I’ve had a somewhat friendly relationship for a number of years. His name is Michael Adams. The relationship between Adams and I changed drastically when I expressed my thoughts about Jennifer. At that point he turned on me with a vengeance. Here is a paragraph from a column Michael Adams published on Townhall.com last week. The column was titled “Eight Straight Suicides.” Read it … it was the fourth paragraph in the column … and tell me what you think about me when you’re done.
Jennifer was a graduate student in Georgia. She was studying counseling at the graduate level when word got out about her religious objections to homosexuality. Some professors also found out that she considered homosexuality to be a chosen lifestyle. Neal Boortz found out and called her ugly names on his radio show. The university forced Jennifer to go through a government-mandated thought control program, which Neal Boortz had endorsed on air. She soon found herself facing the prospect of expulsion from the university. She later killed herself in the face of the Boortz-led witch hunt.
Wait .. you can’t tell me what you think. We’re not on the radio. So I’ll tell you what you think. As soon as you finished that paragraph you were probably telling yourself “Well I’ll be darned! I wonder how Boortz feels about that? He criticized this young girl on his program and caused her to commit suicide. I hope her family sues Boortz and nails him for millions.” I’m guessing that many of the people who read this column put it down before they got to the end and started calling friends to tell them that Neal Boortz had blood on his hands. As a matter of fact, we did start getting emails from my listeners telling me that I was a murderer and hoping that I would rot in hell. One email contained some reference to “blowing my head off.” How nice.
If you read the entire column (here’s your link) you will note that in all of the eight different suicides mentioned by Adams I was the only person actually outed (if you will) as being directly responsible for that young person’s death. It was as if Adams singled me out for especially harsh treatment in this column. Nobody else named. Not one person. I feel so privileged.
I mentioned that the story about Jennifer was in the fourth paragraph of Adams' column; the fourth out of ten. I really can’t say how many people decided to read through the entire column, but from the reaction I know of at least a few who did not. Now that you’re harboring such nasty thoughts about me, perhaps you might like to go ahead and see what Adams had to say in that last paragraph. Here you go:
These eight cases are all true except for one thing: The Christians who were bullied by gays and gay activists are all still alive. Not a single one has committed suicide. That is because they have centered their lives around Jesus Christ, rather than their sexual identity. And no amount of bullying can change my mind about that.
You mean she’s not dead? I’m not a murderer? Wow! Sure am glad I finished his column, aren’t you? But apparently I’m a bully! I’m certainly not a learned college professor, but I was able to look up the word on Wikipedia. Let’s see …. “Bullying behavior may include name calling, verbal or written abuse ….” In that tenth paragraph we learn that I’m either a “gay” or a “gay activist.” Plus, suggesting that I was a causative factor in a girl’s death – when the girl is, in fact, still very much alive – might that be considered a wee-bit abusive?
What say you, Professor Pot?
Cordially,
The Kettle.
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