Issuepedia:Wacky Award

Overview

The Issuepedia Wacky Award is issued irregularly whenever an individual or group does or says something contemptuous. Comments, criticisms, and elaborations are, of course, welcome.

Awards

2007-05-09 Hate Gays for Jesus

The perpetrators of the events described in "Persecution in the schools", mainly Dick Otterstad and his son Luke, plus supporting cast of the El Dorado County congregation and the 38.8% who voted for Otterstad in the 2004 school board election, are the joint recipients of today's Issuepedia Wacky Award.

• The Terwilligers and their group protested against the school system for not allowing t-shirts to be worn in school claiming that homosexuals would go to hell
• The group started up a company, "No Gay Gear", dedicated to producing anti-gay merchandise, in the name of Christian love and tolerance
• In 2004, Otterstad (presumably the elder one) ran for the school board on a platform of abolishing public education. (What was the slogan – "Elect me, and you'll never have to bother voting again!"? Gee, he should meet George W. Bush; they seem to think alike...)
• Another one of his platform issues in that election was abolishing sodomy. At school? Or was it understood that the school district would be seceding from the Union?
• They've dressed up as Santa Claus in Wal-Mart parking lots to warn shoppers about the evils of using "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" – now there's a real threat to civilization!
• They've donned red devil suits to protest the evil "imposition" of gay tolerance at school workshops. Yep, Jesus didn't want no tolerance. Cain't set around figgerin' out who's without sin; we got us some stones to cast, boys!

2007-04-29 Utah Satan resolution

"Utah Co. GOP kills resolution on Satan" (longer report) wins today's Wacky Award, with special honors going to District Chairman Don Larsen, author of both the resolution and one or two prize comments in support of it:

• The Utah County Republican Party killed a resolution asserting Satan's role in illegal immigration and supporting the closure of U.S. borders – not because they realized the ridiculousness of passing a resolution asserting the involvement of a mythical entity, but because too many delegates had gone home by the time the issue came to a vote.
• Don Larsen described the issue as "a behind-the-scenes war being waged on America by big businesses and left-wing extremists". Yep, gotta watch out for those left-wing big-business supporters. We all know how totally into big business the far left is.
• "They're trying to destroy Christian America and install godless order," Larsen said. "We need to close our national borders and protect the United States from destruction by self-invasion." "Christian America" – is that the country George W. Bush is trying to start? But Larsen has a point: invading ourselves might result in a recursive causality loop, destroying the very fabric of space-time – which could be almost as bad as if gay marriage were legalized.
• "Delegate Joe Ferguson agreed, saying undocumented immigrants will never assimilate into American culture." I suppose it would be tasteless and insensitive to challenge Joe's faith in this assertion by bringing up any cold, amoral, anti-family facts which might point to a different conclusion.
• "The devil is involved," Ferguson said. "Marxism is the devil and freedom is in Christ." It wasn't clear from the article whether Satan had actually issued a statement in support of illegal immigration, or whether Ferguson is speaking on the basis of privileged information which, of course, he cannot share due to its sensitive nature. Also, perhaps the founding fathers should be notified that they got it wrong in their attempt to base a free society on rule of/by/for the people instead of rule by following the teachings of Mr. Christ (or whoever can most convincingly claim to have the correct interpretation of those teachings).
• A dissenting conservative, Sen. Howard Stephenson, said he usually agrees with Larsen, but that some of the language in the resolution was divisive and "will just give fodder to the liberal media to beat up on the Republican Party." If anyone knows of any substantial liberal media outlets still remaining in the United States, please check on this and see if they needed this wacko resolution in order to start beating up on the GOP, or if they were able to start the beating-up process using other issues that might have come up in the last 6 years.