Sympathy for the Darrell

Ever been predisposed to dislike someone, and then read an article basically all about how the person is a crook, and yet end up somehow finding the person more likeable because of the article? No? I guess it's just me and

This profile of Darrell Issa

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Okay, so the only point of this post is that I think the title is funny. So what?

Most people aren't gay: a quasi-defense of George Rekers

Sorry for the political interludes, I promise to revert to Russian accents soon!

As you may/may not know, George Rekers was a founder of the Family Research Council, National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, and general purveyor of anti-gay views. providing court testimony that gays should be excluded from the Boy Scouts, not allowed to adopt children, and that homosexuality is destructive and, also, curable. If you knew all that, chances are you also knew that the Miami New Times (their local version of the Seattle Weekly) discovered that he was caught having hired a "rentboy" - a gay escort, basically.

The desire to engage in schadenfreude is very high and very understandable. And, as my least favourite New York Times opinion writer points out, it's richly deserved. Rekers' actions caused misery for many people. Before I learnt that he was gay, I would unhesitatingly be in favour of all sorts of Rekers-bashing (of course, at that point, I had no idea who he was, so this is kinda theoretical). But now that it turns out he is gay, I am a lot more sympathetic. Think about a person who believes that homosexuality is wrong, and yet has this intense homosexual desire. He would universalise his plight. He could come to believe that this is a trial of the will that everyone must face. He will come to believe that heterosexuals around him have conquered these trials, and are simply stronger-willed than the homosexuals he sees. I think, given the high number of gay scandals like Larry Craig's or Ted Haggard's, there is something to this interpretation. Though to the other gays what he said seemed like a denial of the reality of their lives, from his perspective, maybe Rekers was saying "be stronger! We all know what it's like". Doesn't that seem forgiveable?

Of course, that whole part where he is now claiming to not be gay totally destroys my sympathies for Rekers. He is so wedded to his reputation he wants to pretend to not be gay and go on hurting other gays. What a jackass. But I believe that there are other people in his situation. So here's my point to the putative future Rekerses: I'm willing to bet a great majority of people don't want to engage in gay sex. It's not that outwardly heterosexual people mostly have homosexual desires but have the will to fight through them. It's just that some people are gay, but most aren't.

Dear Children's TV Writers: how does 5 bucks sound?

The New York Times notes that a compendium of various studies on the subject published in a report concludes that "use of media" by children correlates very strongly with adverse health effects. Seems relatively straight forward. But how to curb media use? Haranguing people about how watching TV is bad doesn't yield particularly impressive results, plus you run the risk of annoying the fuck out of people, thereby losing all of those unhealthy friends you got. My idea is this: if you're a philanthropist, pay off television writers to write shows that are so bad, no one will want to watch them, thereby leading them to curb their "media use".

Another interesting possibility is that someone is already doing this.