[vhawk01]

Honestly, this whole thing bothered me a little bit. First off, his joke wasnt really that funny. I mean, I get it, but it just isnt that hilarious. That being said, IT IS IN NO WAY OFFENSIVE TO HOMOSEXUALS. At all, not even a little bit. Dont you think that it is a little warped when the president of the Gay and Lesbian alliance or whatever group it is goes into auto-attack dog, offended mode whenever anyone references gays in the media? Isnt that, like, you know, sort of EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU ARE TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH? It seems like these groups, rather than try and get to a point where people dont automatically think something negative whenever they hear the word "gay" would rather flip out whenever they hear the word gay and just make it so no one is allowed to talk about it or make jokes or TREAT HOMOSEXUALITY LIKE EVERY OTHER THING, i.e. fodder for jokes. This wasnt degrading to homosexuals, it wasnt offensive to homosexuals, it wasnt bigoted, it didnt imply homosexuals were inferior or wrong, nothing. It was just loosely ABOUT homosexuals. Just as it was loosely about cowboys and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Honestly, Phil's comment at the end was pretty much perfect, when he talked about apologizing for offending cowboys and Texans and so on. The Governor of Wyoming and the PBR have just as much cause for reaction here.

This is the Al Sharpton-ification of public discourse.