I’ll be in trouble again on Crawley’s blog Will & Testament when the Brits wake up to read my latest comment to William’s latest post. In a post entitled ‘Ann Coulter’s Dirty Mouth’, Will writes: “Recent comments by Ann Coulter, the right-wing political columnist, continue to excite debate across American political blogs. The best guide to the debate is Andrew Sullivan. … In a speech to a conservative political gathering earlier this week, she described Senator John Edwards as a “faggot”. It’s not the first time this frighteningly influential figure has sullied her nation’s public discourse — last year she dismissed Al Gore as a “total fag”. … An online petition calling on Universal Press Syndicate to cease the distribution of Coulter’s column has been signed by more than 40,000 people in less than a week.”

So far, all the comments have condemned Ann Coulter. Oops. My response is as follows:

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Funny; I was just in a car full of people including a Christian conservative, a liberal, a Canadian and a guy from Ireland who all agreed on how much we like Ann Coulter.

William postulates that the “best guide” to the debate is Andrew Sullivan. William, you’re the man, but I’m going to completely disagree with you here. I’m sure in Beebland this definition of impartiality is widely shared (that much is evident from BBC journalism), but outside it’s generally recognised that bloggers do not make the best guide to any debate, since they’re taking part in it themselves! I like Sullivan, but he’s an opinion writer, not a news reporter, and a gay one at that, making him perhaps one of the worst references for an impartial “guide” to this debate. (He’s clearly emotionally involved and is taking this personally as a gay man, a fact easily observed in the way he writes about it; “I would defend her right to do it with my last faggoty breath…” etc. …invested MUCH?)

About Coulter. Her use of the word ‘faggot’ was not used to describe a gay guy. Proof? Edwards is not gay. He’s a straight guy, and therefore to use the word ‘faggot’ as a gay slur wouldn’t make any sense. Coulter was instead using it in a looser way, implying Edwards is flighty, wishy-washy, flakey, etc..

So if it wasn’t a gay slur (because it wasn’t directed toward a gay man….) then why is everyone so upset? I’ll tell you why. It’s because we’ve become a world full of over-sensitive language-nerds. We’re banning words beginning with every letter of the alphabet because we’re so scared of them and now we can add another F-word to the list. Because had Ann Coulter never said that word, the world would have been a much nicer place, right?

Give me a break.

If you ask me, people need to quit being so grim all the time. People who are actually upset about the word ‘faggot’ could use a good night out. We need more people like Ann Coulter who are willing to say what she thinks instead of pussyfooting around everyone else all the time and acting as though the world is one giant game of Buckaroo that might explode at any time.

For those for whom this comment has gone down like a lead balloon (really?), re-read the last sentence. If you still don’t get it….forget it… go back to the grind. Someone’s got to do it.

John Wright