Gay Animals

“Would you see any species of animals engaging in male-to-male, female-to-female (sexual) relations? Animals, then, are better than humans. They know how to distinguish males from females. If men mate with men and women mate with women they are worse than animals.”

The quote above is from Manny Pacquiao when asked on what he thought of same-sex marriage. Naturally, the outrage machine went into overdrive and everyone, even Floyd Mayweather, has been getting their hits in and driving Manny to the ropes.

If anyone has paid attention to Manny the public figure and not Manny the boxer, it's immediately obvious that Manny isn't very bright, is somewhat of a religious nut and is terrible at public speaking. I hate to sound so condescending, but it's true. Manny is famous for his skill at inflicting grievous harm on people, not his skill at rhetoric. Cut the guy some slack. He's Spartacus, not Cicero.

I don't necessarily agree with Manny but he has a right to speak his mind. Good on him. I respect people who do that, no matter how strident they seem. I feel bad for him actually. He doesn't know how these things work. He doesn't know how to play the game of political correctness. When you become a celebrity, you cease being your own man for some reason. I don't even know how this started. You have to say and do all the "correct" things and make sure you don't hurt anybody's feelings. Manny, the simple person that he is, actually believed that he still had freedom of speech and religion. What an idiot. You're supposed to lie, Manny, you're a public figure now and a politician at that. Act like one. That's the foundation of society; deceit. Keep your true feelings to yourself and just say what people want to hear. He should have just given an agreeable, milquetoast non-answer like, "I believe love is important." or something. Playing people requires skill, a skill I don't think he has.

This isn't about the gays. Gay marriage will never happen in this country as long as the church exists. It's a foregone conclusion; an issue fit only to be argued in academic circles. What this is about is the "outrageous" (but not wholly unexpected) statement by a well-known public figure and the amount of benefit people can get by condemning him. There's a lot of pogi points to be scored by condemning Manny for his "ignorance" and "lack of tolerance". Frankly, I find the preening, the posturing and the virtue signalling going on a lot more disgusting than Manny's comments. People are going overboard making themselves look good at his expense. But I suppose that's how it must be. Everyone is for "speaking your mind" until someone actually does.

Consequences? Westerners take this shit more seriously than we do so there's bound to be some blow-back from their side. In fact, Nike is allegedly pulling their sponsorship from Manny. Gee, they didn't seem to have a problem with Manny before when he was making them millions. Locally, I don't think it will amount to much. The secret is that many people actually agree with Manny about homosexuality being unnatural and are against same-sex marriage. People aren't going to throw Manny overboard for this. It's really just the professional outrage experts on Facebook and Twitter raising a fuss. The common folk don't give a shit. They never do. If people can get over a vulgar boor like Duterte eating women's faces on live TV, a guy like Manny can get by with this little gaffe.

Why is this headline news?