SC Sen Mike Fair |
And it doesn't bode well for the state.
Originally, the controversy was about the SC State House taking away $70,000 collectively from the College of Charleston and the University of South Carolina Upstate. The amount adds up to the how much the two colleges spent on the gay-themed books which they assigned students. The legislators claimed that the books, Fun Home and Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio doesn't represent SC community value and were pornographic.
But now the situation is centering around a now canceled lecture at the University of South Carolina Upstate. The lecture titled, “How to be a lesbian in 10 days or less" is a satirical and comedic one-woman show by Leigh Hendrix which dealt with coming out.
However, lawmakers raised a fuss about the lecture, claiming that it was "recruiting" students to be gay. One lawmaker in particular, Sen. Mike Fair of Greenville, had this to say:
“That's not an explanation of 'I was born this way.’ It's recruiting.”
So now, thanks to Sen. Fair, various nationwide media have picked up the story and few, including the Huffington Post, are tongue-in-cheek with their coverage. The majority of them are focusing on the ridiculous notion that a lecture could actually make someone gay.
And Sen. Fair, not unlike the main character in the fable The Mischievous Dog, continues to publicly comment about the lecture and homosexuality, totally oblivious as to how ridiculous South Carolina looks every time he opens his mouth.
Recently, he was interviewed by a local independent newspaper, The Free Times. During the interview, Sen. Fair had some very interesting things to say about lgbt South Carolinians:
Fair — a staunch religious conservative who believes homosexuality is morally wrong — says that while Americans have inalienable rights, glorifying homosexuality at taxpayers’ expense is not one of them. When Free Times pointed out that homosexuals pay taxes, too, as do the families of gay college students, Fair suggested they are also lawbreakers. He pointed to an antiquated state law against “the abominable act of buggery.” While the law is not enforced and homosexuality is not exactly illegal, Fair admits, he says it is still immoral and unhealthy.
Believe it or not, Fair continues:
Doesn’t morality extend to teaching tolerance of homosexuality in a free society? Isn’t that what USC Upstate and the College of Charleston were trying to accomplish? “I don’t believe that,” he says. Actually, he said, homosexuals “lack security in their conviction that what they’re doing is okay.”
When Sen. Fair talks about "what homosexuals are doing," he is talking about sex. Or more specifically, what he imagines sexual intercourse is between two men because usually when folks like Sen. Fair start hinting about "gay sex," men having sex with each other seems to always be the direction they head to. Apparently to them, lesbians never have sex.