San Francisco Appeal: SF Chronicle Columnist: Bigotry Not So Bad.

The Chron startled the Appeal today when their columnist Chip Johnson defended a bigot in Oakland. The situation is this: Lorenzo Hoopes, a Mormon, donated $26,000 in support of Prop 8, more than any individual in Oakland, a city with one of the country’s largest lesbian populations. (Really!) Hoopes faces re-appointment to the Board of Directors of the Paramount theater; but now that he’s shown himself to be an anti-gay supremacist, some community leaders are opposed to his continued presence.

After all, as we’ve seen during this week’s Prop 8 trial, discrimination against gays has real consequences — to society, to individuals, and to families.

But Chronicle writer and Oakland resident Chip Johnson is outraged! In an piece that might as well have been titled, “Aw, Give the Old Bigot a Break, He’s Probably Real Nice,” he lamented that anyone would actually dare hold Hoopes accountable for his actions.

Unlike many of our respected friends in the San Francisco news space, The San Francisco Appeal does not practice advocacy journalism. We have no dogs in fights, and do our best to report as objectively as we can without being totally boring and cheesy. However, we are, indeed “anti Prop-8 cheerleaders.” This is because we are not fucking bigots! Therefore, we called on Oakland resident Jip Chonson to provide us with a rebuttal to the Chronicle’s piece.

And then “Chonson” goes and re-writes the Chronicle‘s piece by doing a s/gay/Jew/ on it. Go ahead, feel uncomfortable. You’re supposed to.

I stole this link from jwz’s LJ. A commenter there writes, “Isn’t it interesting what happens to all of these initiatives and talking points when you take the word, “homosexual” and replace it with, “negro” or “Jew”? Why, you get the very bigotted language we used to hear back a century ago! Who’d have ever thought?”

Bigotry is bigotry. It is not an unfortunate social habit, nor is it in bad taste — it’s just wrong. This isn’t really complicated, yet the ability of a great many people to fully miss the point is sad.