I don’t know who put this together, but I’m in love with it…2 things:
1) Julian Assange is a douche. I don’t really know enough about the whole Swedish rape vs. CIA-“honey-trap” issue to write anything intelligent about this topic, because for all I know maybe those women really are being pressured to pursue charges against him so that Sweden can get him into custody and proceed to pressure him about WikiLeaks. It’s entirely possible. But the point is that the charges are still there because the women were assaulted, and whether the regular legal processes are being gone above and beyond to get a legal paw on Assange, the fact remains that he’s a slimy turd-ball for doing what he did in the first place. And also for this piece of “gentleman”-like behavior on the BBC with John Humphreys, in which he says things like, “These women may be victims in this process” of trying to get to him; calls Sweden a “bit more of a banana republic”; says he’s been “martyred without dying”; asserts that the women involved “got into a tizzy about whether there was a possibility of sexually transmitted diseases,” which is a “ridiculous thing to go to the police about”; and maintains that he’s “never had a problem before with women. Women have been extremely helpful and generous.”
Dude, if you want the international community to rally behind your rights as a journalist, being a supercilious douche-nozzle about what a “gentleman” and a “capable, generous man” you are, while treating other journalists who are asking (mostly) pertinent questions like they’re third-graders, and dismissing RAPE allegations as “ridiculous” with absolutely no regard for their seriousness… yeah, that’s not the best way to go about it. That’s not the best way to go about ANYTHING. Neither is sexually assaulting women and belittling their level of upset over being assaulted by calling it a “tizzy.” What an ass-hat. I hope he gets extradited and grilled, just for that.
2) In more pleasantly ridiculous news closer to home, however, “Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, the founder and head of the Ruth Institute, which describes itself as ‘a project of the National Organization for Marriage,’ told the right-wing American Family News Network’s OneNewsNow that the rainbow should be the symbol of Prop 8 supporters and Religious Right activists because ‘the rainbow is a sign of God’s covenant with man.'” She wore a rainbow scarf to an gay-bashing event the other day and made the announcement that because of the RAINBOW‘s religious affiliations, it will be “taken back” from the gay community to be touted by Christians and Jews and anti-gay activists around the world.
Ummm… taking something back… from the gay community? That’s like taking a morsel of bread out of the mouth of a starving child!
But still, I’m all for it. As Jezebel pointed out, if anti-gay protesters and activists want to be mistaken for gays and gay-rights activists because they’re wearing rainbows, then more power to them! But by the way, anti-gay jackasses, the whole idea of the rainbow is UNITY. The unity of all the colors in one beautiful arc is symbolically relevant because it shows the beauty in the possibility of peaceful cooperation when people put aside their differences after the storm to come together in a “rainbow coalition” of love. I mean, God may have meant something slightly different back in the Bible, but that’s how the rainbow applies to human interaction these days, no matter how much you might try to Biblify it. That’s just how a symbol like that works. So trying to take it AWAY from other people who are using to show their support of unity and love… Yeah, not so much. It just kind of highlights what a bunch of intolerant jerk-offs you are.
Sigh. Merry Christmas, everyone.