Bill Maher's birther monologue speaks to gay community's ego problem

Please forgive me for not including any news briefs today. But a video of a Bill Maher monologue has been on my mind.

He was talking about the birthers but his words leads me to say the following:

Sometimes I feel that any points of progression made by the religious right are in part the fault of the lgbt community.

We have the resources to expose their lies, their reliance on Paul Cameronesque studies and their constant stigmatization of us on a large scale. And we have the numbers of support to back us up when we do.

But many of us don't believe in talking about these things. I think our community on the whole has an ego problem.

There are some of us who have this idea that to focus any attention on organizations like the Family Research Council or Concerned Women for America or wacky religious right talkings heads such as Peter LaBarbera or Linda Harvey is beneath us.

Some of us have this idea to do so would give the religous right more attention than they deserve. And that is part of the problem. That mindset is egotistical and if we don't get our noses out of the air and to the grindstone, the lgbt community will never get to where we need to be.

But Bill Maher says it much better than me. Below the video is the transcript. Again, he is talking about the birthers, but his words can relate to the lgbt community. We have allowed lies about us to grow and spread. And now we need to mow down a shitload of crabgrass:



TRANSCRIPT: Never underestimate the ability of a tiny fringe group of losers to ruin everything. For the past couple of weeks we've been laughing heartily at the wacky antics of the "birthers", the far-right goofballs who claim Obama wasn't really born in Hawaii and therefore the job goes to the runner-up, Miss California Carrie Prejean.

And you know there is nothing you can do to convince these people, you can hand them in person the original birth certificate with the placenta, and have a video of Obama emerging from the womb with Don Ho singing in the background, and they still would not believe it.

"Hey birthers, wanna hear my theory? My theory was that Obama was born in America and you were born with the umbilical cord around your neck. I don't know what his mother was doing when she was pregnant, but I'm pretty sure your mom was drinking."

Oh, I kid the birthers, there's one thing that makes me think they could be right. We're Americans, of course we're gonna hire an illegal alien to clean-up.

I'm joking, of course. And laughing it off has also been the reaction from Democratic leaders so far. Proving that Democrats never learn. But if you don't immediately kill errant bulls**t, no matter how ridiculous it can't grow and thrive like crabgrass or Cirque du Soleil. This birther stuff might be a deluded right-wing obsession, but so was Whitewater and look where that ended up: "What are they gonna do, keep expanding the case until they impeach the President over a blowjob?"

Yes.

I'm telling you that in America there is no idea so patently absurd that it can't catch on. Have you ever met a Mormon?

Or, more recently, we had the Swift Boat allegations against John Kerry, making him, a genuine war hero, a coward in a race against the guy who never left Texas. It was so stupid Kerry refused to even discuss it and we all know how well that worked out.

Well, you may ask, how something as inane as Whitewater or Swift Boats or the birther-thing gains traction? Well I'll tell you how, the same way that the story of Elton John almost dying from ingesting too much of Rod Stewart's sperm gained traction in my high school, dummies talking to other dummies.

It's just easier now because of the internet. And because our mainstream media does such a lousy job of talking truth to stupid.

Lou Dobbs said recently, "People are asking a lot of questions about the birth certificate." Yes, the same people who want to know where the Sun goes at night and where to put the stamp on their e-mail. And Lou, you're their new king.

Which is why it is so important that we, the few, the proud, the reality based, attack this stuff before it has a chance to fester and spread. This is not a case of Democrats versus Republicans. It's sentient beings versus the lizard people.

And it is to the lizard people that I offer this deal, I will show you President Obama's birth certificate when you show me Sarah Palin's high school diploma.