The Scene and Herd

This might come as a surprise to you, but the FOX news channel aired something totally unclassy last week. On the same day that Canada lost four soldiers in Afghanistan, a bunch of losers on a stupid show called Red Eye went on a four person rant about how useless our military is. I was really indignant at watching it, horrified even. Like any decent person, I was saddened by the idea that families of the dead solders might come across it. I also really love Canada, and while usually I couldn’t care less what Americans think of us, those guys on Red Eye were being over-the-top obnoxious about a country they obviously know nothing about.

But when the dust of my rage settled, I realized most of my indignation wasn’t about the dead soldiers, or the way my country’s reputation was soiled on American TV. Mostly I was upset that I had been exposed to the unintelligent and trashy views of the Red Eye panel. And now the clip is everywhere because they talked about Canada… I had never even heard of the show, but now those knuckleheads are permanently on my radar. They are a blemish on my view of life.

Westboro Baptist Church did something equally obnoxious last week by threatening to picket Natasha Richardson’s funeral. Like Red Eye, this incident plagues my head with a crass noisiness. I have a fascination for Westboro, along with a sick sense of responsibility because I attended a Baptist church in my youth and my parents still go there. Obviously, Westboro is not really a Baptist church so much as they’re a cultish hate group. But I’m still tied to them nominally and this irks me. On behalf of gay people and every other group they target, I am offended by Westboro. But I am also offended on behalf of myself … as a religious person.

 The collision of Red Eye with Westboro last week made me realize that when someone says something politically incorrect, I’m less concerned about the offended group than I am about my own sense of propriety. Each time Westboro goes off the deep end, I wish to God (seriously, as in I pray to God) that the religious lunatics would leave some room for the faith community to behave in public with some decorum.

And the Red Eye rant didn’t offend me as a Canadian; it offended me as a classy individual.

Racism, sexism, homophobia and random comments made about the Special Olympics can be dangerous and awful. But mostly they’re just tasteless and make for tawdry after dinner programming.  And that’s something we can all get angry about, in solidarity.