By now we’re all quite familiar with Israel Folau‘s slapdash approach to literally interpreting the Bible, where the part in Corinthians about gay people being excluded from the Kingdom of God is meant to be taken very literally but the part in Leviticus about not getting tattoos is more of a ‘if you feel like it’ kinda rule. His support for the ‘no’ side in the postal survey and the Instagram comment where he quite clearly expressed his belief that unrepentant homosexuals are headed for the Bad Place were both quite polarising, with News Corp‘s strikeforce of perpetually-incensed outrage-lampreys rallying behind him as a champion of free speech and traditional values. I think most normal people just mentally flagged him as a bit of a dickhead before moving on with their lives.
We’re lucky enough to live in a pluralistic society where people are free to have and express dickhead beliefs to their heart’s content and where, correspondingly, we are free to respond to beliefs founded in bigotry or exclusion with one of the only responses that actually works: ridicule. No amount of yelling at Folau about his beliefs would likely change his mind but we can treat the contention that gay people are inherently morally and spiritually corrupt with the level of seriousness that it deserves (absolutely none).
Sure, you could grab the announcer’s microphone when Folau’s on the field at AMI Stadium and tell him to rack off. That’s cool I guess. Or, even better, you could just start playing the Village People‘s YMCA, as a nameless hero did when the Crusaders played the Waratahs in Christchurch on Saturday night.
https://twitter.com/AboAbramowitz/status/995211596648464386
https://twitter.com/steffenrusten/status/995196564887953409
Short of grabbing by their lapels whoever is in charge of the music and shaking them until we get some god damn answers, there’s no way to tell if this was a delightful coincidence or a perfectly calculated and executed troll but, either way, what a wonderful time to be alive. In the words of Taika Waititi:
Shot TJ. And jaaaardup Israel. https://t.co/GZBARJhgch
— Taika Waititi (@TaikaWaititi) April 18, 2018
