Bigot.
The Outlander
I had hoped I wasn’t going to have to address this, but I suppose I will.
Last week’s Niagara Falls Reporter piece by former alleged stalker and current bigot Lenny Palumbo managed to rightfully stir up enough voices around the internet locally and nationally to shout down and condemn the rantings of an angry white man who longs for the days where he could oppress others to placate his insecure and disturbed soul. It appeared to me that Palumbo and perhaps the Reporter itself was hoping for this type of reaction in the way the author tactlessly shoehorned anti-gay rhetoric into a meandering bitchfest about the Sabres - or at least the past roster - being pussies. Their latest issue has confirmed these suspicions as Palumbo doubles down on the hate and publisher Frank Parlato puts on his ten-gallon hat and climaxes to the image of a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag while reciting the first amendment at the top of his lungs. (Editor's Note: This is true, we have video) As a fellow proponent of the Constitution, I feel I’ll take a crack at exacting my right to free speech as well.
Lenny Palumbo is a piece of shit. He is weak, hateful, little man. As a man I am ashamed to share my gender with him and as a Western New Yorker I am ashamed to share my region with him. However, there is no changing these people. One thing about this region that so many hateful souls like Palumbo love is that they can completely wall themselves off from the world and live in their own version of 1950 where homosexuals are synonymous with “deviants” and minorities have to call every white man that addresses them “sir.”
(I will not stoop to Lenny’s level here and make assumptions that he is a racist. I will say that many of the people I have come across that hate gays also have no problem voicing their deep hate for anyone with a different skin tone than them.)
I had hoped I wasn’t going to have to address this, but I suppose I will.
Last week’s Niagara Falls Reporter piece by former alleged stalker and current bigot Lenny Palumbo managed to rightfully stir up enough voices around the internet locally and nationally to shout down and condemn the rantings of an angry white man who longs for the days where he could oppress others to placate his insecure and disturbed soul. It appeared to me that Palumbo and perhaps the Reporter itself was hoping for this type of reaction in the way the author tactlessly shoehorned anti-gay rhetoric into a meandering bitchfest about the Sabres - or at least the past roster - being pussies. Their latest issue has confirmed these suspicions as Palumbo doubles down on the hate and publisher Frank Parlato puts on his ten-gallon hat and climaxes to the image of a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag while reciting the first amendment at the top of his lungs. (Editor's Note: This is true, we have video) As a fellow proponent of the Constitution, I feel I’ll take a crack at exacting my right to free speech as well.
Lenny Palumbo is a piece of shit. He is weak, hateful, little man. As a man I am ashamed to share my gender with him and as a Western New Yorker I am ashamed to share my region with him. However, there is no changing these people. One thing about this region that so many hateful souls like Palumbo love is that they can completely wall themselves off from the world and live in their own version of 1950 where homosexuals are synonymous with “deviants” and minorities have to call every white man that addresses them “sir.”
(I will not stoop to Lenny’s level here and make assumptions that he is a racist. I will say that many of the people I have come across that hate gays also have no problem voicing their deep hate for anyone with a different skin tone than them.)
Palumbo rants on about what he sees as the “pro-homosexual” agenda which seeks to “indoctrinate impressionable children into accepting the idea that ‘gay is good.’” He claims those who seek this have “turned their backs on god and his laws and made gods of themselves who, in their omniscient wisdom, pass judgment on their objectors.” I feel compelled to address these specific assertions simply due to their batshit-crazy blindness. (I considered rebutting this entire column FJM-style but that would take all week and this needs to be put behind us before the important things- like John Potter’s chance to make the team and get taint-slapped by Brian Moorman all season- can be addressed).
1. The term “pro-homosexual agenda” is one of the most ridiculous creations of those on the side of hatred and intolerance. The belief that everyone who supports equal LGBT rights somehow want to turn all our children gay is simply laughable. There also seems to be some assumption that everyone who supports equal rights tends to be gay which is fucking laughable.
2. Anyone who wants to wrap themselves in the words of Leviticus to justify their hatred deserves to be slapped in the scrotum with a tire-iron. Christians who actually know their Bible should be ashamed of those who point to this particular book for any guidance on how to live their lives. To those who would reply with the usual useless garbage about the literal word of god, I have to ask: do you even know what is in the Old Testament? I’m not going to debate you on evolution and the age of the planet, we need not go down that rabbit hole; but do you understand the level of violence, hatred, death and depravity that is condoned and, according to some portions of the Bible, ordered by the man upstairs? To put it simply, if you believe Leviticus 18:22 is the "word of god," then, well let President Bartlett take you the rest of the way:
1. The term “pro-homosexual agenda” is one of the most ridiculous creations of those on the side of hatred and intolerance. The belief that everyone who supports equal LGBT rights somehow want to turn all our children gay is simply laughable. There also seems to be some assumption that everyone who supports equal rights tends to be gay which is fucking laughable.
2. Anyone who wants to wrap themselves in the words of Leviticus to justify their hatred deserves to be slapped in the scrotum with a tire-iron. Christians who actually know their Bible should be ashamed of those who point to this particular book for any guidance on how to live their lives. To those who would reply with the usual useless garbage about the literal word of god, I have to ask: do you even know what is in the Old Testament? I’m not going to debate you on evolution and the age of the planet, we need not go down that rabbit hole; but do you understand the level of violence, hatred, death and depravity that is condoned and, according to some portions of the Bible, ordered by the man upstairs? To put it simply, if you believe Leviticus 18:22 is the "word of god," then, well let President Bartlett take you the rest of the way:
(As an aside... As much as I would not have minded the euthanizing the Buffalo Bills during the Dick Jauron era, I feel we would have found it hard to defend it as mandated by god).
The thing that our fellow Sabres fan Lenny doesn’t understand is that it is only right - and yes, I will say here that this view is right and to disagree is wrong - to accept others who do not cause harm in our society and simply want the same things in this world that we want. I don’t know what school Palumbo is attending (by the level of his writing it may be elementary school), but I sure didn’t see any lessons preaching equality during my years in the Tonawanda school system. I wish they had because I wouldn’t have spent my adolescence being an ignorant fuck joining the vast majority of ignorant fucks insulting the few openly gay students in our small school and tossing insults to anyone who dared befriend them.
This is the sort of thing that can be expected in such a closed off community - from teenagers. Lenny Palumbo is a grown ass man, which proves to me that he has never ventured outside of his enclosed bubble. Most people who spout off such nonsense as kids eventually grow up and see the error of their ways, eventually embracing the obviousness of equality. For me it was college and grad school, where a few of my best friends were LGBT. But there are others who will never learn, like the asshole classmate of mine who would stand outside the gay bar in State College in the snow while I and my buddies would stop in for shots and the strongest cheap drinks the town had to offer on our nightly barhopping ventures.
That’s you Lenny; you’re the douche standing outside in the snow while the rest of us are inside drinking together.
The thing that our fellow Sabres fan Lenny doesn’t understand is that it is only right - and yes, I will say here that this view is right and to disagree is wrong - to accept others who do not cause harm in our society and simply want the same things in this world that we want. I don’t know what school Palumbo is attending (by the level of his writing it may be elementary school), but I sure didn’t see any lessons preaching equality during my years in the Tonawanda school system. I wish they had because I wouldn’t have spent my adolescence being an ignorant fuck joining the vast majority of ignorant fucks insulting the few openly gay students in our small school and tossing insults to anyone who dared befriend them.
This is the sort of thing that can be expected in such a closed off community - from teenagers. Lenny Palumbo is a grown ass man, which proves to me that he has never ventured outside of his enclosed bubble. Most people who spout off such nonsense as kids eventually grow up and see the error of their ways, eventually embracing the obviousness of equality. For me it was college and grad school, where a few of my best friends were LGBT. But there are others who will never learn, like the asshole classmate of mine who would stand outside the gay bar in State College in the snow while I and my buddies would stop in for shots and the strongest cheap drinks the town had to offer on our nightly barhopping ventures.
That’s you Lenny; you’re the douche standing outside in the snow while the rest of us are inside drinking together.
In the end, addressing Palumbo and many others in his generation is like screaming at the rain. Come to an Outlander family gathering and see what the older patrons have to say when it comes to the issues of gay rights and it is no wonder the NFR seems to do well among the older folk. My mother somehow thinks her shotgun - and short lived - marriage which left her raising me alone was more acceptable than two men who have been together for thirty years getting married. My grandparents are convinced that higher education exists to brainwash students into being atheists. The thing is, my grandparents came from tiny Duke Center, Pennsylvania and my mother never left the City of Tonawanda or went to college. The condemnation of gays becomes ingrained to the point where to explain another viewpoint is like telling them the sky is red - it is simply untrue in their eyes. Because of that I simply feel sorry for my family. And I’d feel sorry for Lenny Palumbo too if he wasn’t so desperate to voice his hatred that he’d reach out for something as dissimilar as the Sabres' lack of enforcers for his vessel.
As for the Reporter’s use of the First Amendment as their defense - they certainly do have the right to publish Palumbo’s views, just as their advertisers have the right to pull their ads and we as citizens reserve the right not to read it. White supremacists have the same right to publish their hate, whether it in the form of pamphlets or in screaming into a bullhorn while marching down some street in Indiana. The thing is we live in a world where things like this still happen at the hands of people who would fully embrace Palumbo’s views. Why are we as a society so quick to dismiss the men in white sheets screaming into a bullhorn but so many rush to the aid of a hack telling us that parents should teach their kids to hate the sexual orientation of others? Why would any self-respecting publisher even allow a writer to make the ridiculous argument that the reason the Sabres cowered against the Bruins was that Derek Roy walked in a fashion show and insinuate that because John Scott pounds opponents into a pulp he must crush pussy every night? Such Cro-Magnon thoughts are too low even for the Deeg, and we encourage each other to get shitfaced and spew hatred on a regular basis.
Frankly, Palumbo’s last point, reiterated in his most recent opinion piece, that the You Can Play project is used to “eliminate the influence” of parents who hate those who are LGBT could be right for all I care. Good. We as a society should eliminate blind hatred from fucktards, whether that hatred stems from biblical misinterpretation or a Hans Landa-like visceral disdain of anything that is “other.” Just because you have offspring doesn’t mean public schools and society (including the NHL) should stand by while you raise him to be Pat Roberton’s demon spawn. Use the f-word (and no, I don't mean "fuck") all you want at home you ignorant prick but yes, there are many in this world that are going to work hard to convince your little Damien that hatred for the sake of hatred is unacceptable in a civilized society.
As for the Reporter’s use of the First Amendment as their defense - they certainly do have the right to publish Palumbo’s views, just as their advertisers have the right to pull their ads and we as citizens reserve the right not to read it. White supremacists have the same right to publish their hate, whether it in the form of pamphlets or in screaming into a bullhorn while marching down some street in Indiana. The thing is we live in a world where things like this still happen at the hands of people who would fully embrace Palumbo’s views. Why are we as a society so quick to dismiss the men in white sheets screaming into a bullhorn but so many rush to the aid of a hack telling us that parents should teach their kids to hate the sexual orientation of others? Why would any self-respecting publisher even allow a writer to make the ridiculous argument that the reason the Sabres cowered against the Bruins was that Derek Roy walked in a fashion show and insinuate that because John Scott pounds opponents into a pulp he must crush pussy every night? Such Cro-Magnon thoughts are too low even for the Deeg, and we encourage each other to get shitfaced and spew hatred on a regular basis.
Frankly, Palumbo’s last point, reiterated in his most recent opinion piece, that the You Can Play project is used to “eliminate the influence” of parents who hate those who are LGBT could be right for all I care. Good. We as a society should eliminate blind hatred from fucktards, whether that hatred stems from biblical misinterpretation or a Hans Landa-like visceral disdain of anything that is “other.” Just because you have offspring doesn’t mean public schools and society (including the NHL) should stand by while you raise him to be Pat Roberton’s demon spawn. Use the f-word (and no, I don't mean "fuck") all you want at home you ignorant prick but yes, there are many in this world that are going to work hard to convince your little Damien that hatred for the sake of hatred is unacceptable in a civilized society.
For the record, hatred for missing a field goal, poor tackling skills, inability to throw a five-yard out, being a fat fuck who couldn’t block a tackling dummy, missing wide open nets on a consistent basis, constantly letting in goals high to the glove side, being a condescending dick to fans, having a fetish for pissing on girls, inability to pitch 3 innings without shitting all over the mound, consistently striking out with runners in scoring position, running over women with your car, being a current, former or future Tampa Bay Ray, Ottawa Senator, Carolina Hurricane, New England Patriot, or Pittsburgh Steeler, and writing incomprehensible nonsense about gay-rights supporters are all still fully acceptable.
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