I am a theoretical physicist and currently Director of 
June 14, 2011
The gays amongst us
I had never heard of Tracy Morgan until he appeared on The Daily Show a few weeks ago and I took an instinctive dislike to him. He seemed kind of obnoxious. I did not know if he was really like that or was playing a part and I did not really care.
The next thing I heard was that he had let loose a nasty homophobic rant during his stand up comedy routine.
Tina Fey, who plays his boss on a TV show, criticized his comments and in the process said something important that I hope all people will take to heart: "I hope for his sake that Tracy's apology will be accepted as sincere by his gay and lesbian coworkers at 30 Rock, without whom Tracy would not have lines to say, clothes to wear, sets to stand on, scene partners to act with, or a printed-out paycheck from accounting to put in his pocket."
Even if you don't like gay people, you would be wise to keep your anti-gay bile to yourself, not because they will threaten you, but because they are all around us and we depend on them whether we are aware of it or not.
Comments
I was pleased at the uprising against Morgan for his rant. 15 years ago it may not have been so strong. 20 years ago, it may have gone totally under the radar. I was sad, but not surprised, that his allegedly almost as offensive (I say almost because he didn't talk about stabbing women) remarks about women did go mostly under the radar. Like I often say, we are so used to sexism that it is hidden in plain sight.
G,
I assume that your wedding went off well since the Rapture did not occur to disrupt the proceedings!
I had not heard about the sexist part of the rant until you linked to it. Morgan seems like a nasty piece of work.
I had mixed feelings like with the Mel Gilson rant where all the focus on on his ant-jewish comments and no-one mentioned his sexist statements to the female officer
so with Morgan and the focus on the ant-gay part with no response to the idea that he feels entitled to murder his child if they fail to live up to his expectations
Ok Ok, I know many people found what he said to be extremely offensive, but let's all take a deep breath for a minute. There are a number of people, myself included, that think if it's not somewhat offensive then it's not funny. I think we should give comedians more slack to say offensive comments in their acts because if we don't....then we will just get the same regurgitated junk we are accustomed too.
When are people going to mind their own business? If sexual preference isn't a personal choice I don't know what is!