Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
The Divine Ms. Z continues to prove the old adage about well-behaved women seldom making history as she once again finds herself at the center of a frenzied little tempest of outrage, hurt feelings and political correctness run amok, this time because of a comment at her Canada Day post.
Zerb’s post mentioned the censorious tendencies of the zionist lobby. In the ensuing comment thread it came up that Bernie Farber of the Canadian Jewish Congress had marched in the Pride parade with a pro-zionist GLBT group. (Yay for diversity-embracing Bernie!) However, he only signed on for it after failed attempts to get the parade to give an anti-zionist (not anti-semitic) GLBT group the boot.
Commenting snarkily on the possibility that Farber might have had his own agenda, Antonia said: “I didn’t know he was gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that”… and set off a shitstorm. Farber fired off an official complaint to the Star for having been “misrepresented” as gay (carefully adding words to the effect of “not that there’s anything wrong with that”)… even though at the parade he wore a T-shirt that said as much: “Nobody knows I’m Gay”. So come on — someone had to say it.
It all culminated Saturday as the once-proud Star caved and issued a pearl-clutching apology for Antonia’s “Gay Blog post”. Only an idiot (and in my opinion, a homophobe) would interpret her comment as an insult — either that or Farber didn’t like some of the other things Zerb had to say, and saw the comment as an opportunity to stop her from saying them. Pick one, there’s no “neither of the above” option.
That’s called “censorship”, so maybe Zerb should be thanking Farber for making her point.
You can advise the Star of how wrong they got this by emailing Kathy English at publiced @ thestar.ca.
UPDATE: What CC said.
UPDATE II: And what stageleft said.
UPDATE III: Alison’s Epic Fail Roundup. (Or, “What they said”.)
UPDATE IV: JAB’s take.
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unrepentant old hippie 
The Star’s “apology” is so problematic. I was out walking with my dog this morning planning my letter of response.
This has hit a nerve where I’m so furious I hardly have words to respond with.
Glad you posted about it.
That piece of shit was an apology? That was the most bitter, backhanded, condescending trash I’ve read in ages. If that’s an example of the high standards that bitch was talking about then she set the bar awfully low. She could barely hide her contempt for Antonia, and for bloggers in general.
Most of the bloggers, whom she seems to regard as lesser beings, that I read actually maintain higher standards than that trash. And don’t get me started on the gay stuff, which she should NEVER be talking about based on her lack of knowledge.
orange – A little bizarre, eh? What vindictive garbage. There was not only no need to apologize, there was definitely no need to go on a rant like that.
Bruce – Yeah, I was quite taken aback by it myself. When I read that the Star had done this, I wasn’t really expecting that kind of vitriol 😯 I mean, AZ is the only reason a lot of people even read the Star.
And seriously, Farber’s complaint is bogus — never mind that it’s not an insult to be called gay, but how can someone complain about being “misrepresented” as gay when they’ve posted pictures of themselves on Twitter wearing a shirt that says “Nobody knows I’m gay”? Someone is bound to say “Oh, look. He came out. Well good for him.” or make some comment about his real agenda, like Zerb did.
Disgusting and insulting not only to AZ, but to all bloggers.
What a bunch of dim-witted cowards they are at the Star. They don’t deserve AZ.
fern hill – I was fairly restrained in my commentary (not wanting to make life any more difficult for AZ), but the Star’s apology, far from being boilerplate pedantic “We-reget-the-error” type stuff, was nothing less than a vicious, cowardly hit piece on Zerb. It strongly suggests there’s more going on than meets the eye. The resentment of new media and those who use it was obvious.
BTW, JJ, I have a response to Kathy English’s bad English.