Need a Laugh?

Or maybe a good cry, at the stupidity of your fellow man?

Then read the Conservapedia wiki entry on homosexuality. It starts out with all the brilliance you would expect from fundamentalist young Earth Creationists: "In regards to homosexuality research, much of the research that has been in regards to the causes of homosexuality and the effects of homosexuality has been done since the latter part of the 20th century."

And it somehow manages to go downhill from there.

I won't go into all the inaccuracies and other howlers in the entry, because my point (for the purposes of this post, anyway), centers on the captioned photograph that appears about halfway down the page. It's so blatant as to be almost parodic, and for Conservapedia that's saying quite a lot. Beneath a familiar bald head, we read: "The occultist Aleister Crowley was a bisexual and was dubbed in his lifetime 'the most wicked man on earth'. Aleister Crowley stated: 'I was not content to believe in a personal devil and serve him, in the ordinary sense of the word. I wanted to get hold of him personally and become his chief of staff.'" (Other illustrations include an artist's rendering of the destruction of Sodom and photos of prominent "former" gays and lesbians.) There isn't much I can say about this that isn't blazingly obvious. I'll just add that the entry doesn't contain any information about the bi/homosexuality of J. Edgar Hoover (or a possible link between being deeply closeted and persecuting Communists), Ted Haggard, or Errol Flynn (or a possible link between being deeply closeted and being a Nazi).

On a more serious note, check out Tom Rawstorne's May Mail article "Why no child is safe from the sinister cult of emo", which is not a satirical piece. We see BE and AE (Before Emo and After Emo) photos of 13-year-old suicide Hannah Bond, a fan of My Chemical Romance. The pictures look identical aside from some eyeliner, bringing to mind the Canadian Goth murder newspaper coverage of a few years ago. Rawstorne provides pointers on How to Spot an Emo:

They wear "black, favouring tight jeans, T-shirts, studded belts and sneakers or skater shoes." No, not sneakers! Anything but that! God have mercy on our souls!

Sheesh. But it gets worse.

"Emos like guitar-based rock with emotional lyrics." They particularly enjoy My Chemical Romance and Blink 182, according to Rawstorne, who apparently researches teenage subcultures in his own ass.

"Some describe it as a cult or a sect." Hannah told her bewildered parents that her wrist-cuts were part of an "emo initiation ceremony". She also talked about "The Black Parade", "a place where all emos believe they go when they die."

Once again, the media somehow manages to avoid examining the actual social issues behind a story (undiagnosed depression, suicide) while zeroing in on almost entirely insignificant peripheral matters (crappy music and questionable fashion sense).

If Mr. Rawstorne and his pseudojournalistic ilk want to address a troubling youth trend, why not examine the callousness of those who enjoy mocking suicides and harrassing the families of children who kill themselves? They seem far more emotionally disturbed than any emo.