A lot of people in America like Garrison Keillor and his Prairie Home Companion radio show, but unfortunately Keillor isn't very kind when comes to people he doesn't much care for - and that includes gays and atheists. I originally posted this almost a year ago, but I still get email from people annoyed that I'm criticizing what appears to be one of their idols. So, I thought I'd bring it back to the front again.
PZ Myers quotes some of his responses to letters he has received from atheists, and then also this comment about gays:
I favor marriage between people whose body parts are not similar. I'm sorry, but same-sex marriage seems timid, an attempt to save on wardrobe and accessories. Marrying somebody from your team. Still, it's probably good for them to have to fight for the right to marry. My parents eloped against strong opposition from both families and they were in love for the rest of their lives and held hands and were tender on into their 80s. Of course they always had fresh strawberries.
Myers responds:
Can you trivialize it any more, Garrison? Homosexuals only want to marry to share clothes…do heterosexuals only marry to share the rent and get that tax deduction? I think homosexuals want to fall in love for the rest of their lives and hold hands and eat strawberries together, too, and it is not our privilege to stand in their way. Keillor's parents eloped (as did mine, by the way), but despite their family opposition they could stand up as adults and get society's blessing on their independence and their partnership. Gay marriage is about granting consenting adults autonomy and recognition and public commitment to one another. There is no good cause to deny it, and pretending it is just about sharing wardrobe accessories is contemptible.
Ah, but again he reminds me of my grandparents: they were good people, loving and kind, and I cared for them very much, but my grandfather hated "the Japs" and could be spiteful and mean when he was drunk, and my grandmother warned me not to date any Negroes when I went off to college. That I loved my grandparents doesn't make their unthinking racism any less wrong.
Perhaps it would be going too far to say that Keillor has a "nasty streak." Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that his bigotry is a product of indifference rather than meanness. Still, I have to wonder... how long can bigotry be dismissed as mere indifference and at what point must it be regarded as meanness? If Keillor were truly and only indifferent, why write about the topics at all? He can't be completely indifferent, I think, otherwise he wouldn't have an opinion.
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Apparently it is a liberal value to dislike gays and atheists.