A World Gone Crazy

Yesterday, I was afraid the apocalypse was upon us. First of all, Elizabeth Hasselbeck (on the TV show "The View," and whose voice normally gives me seizures) actually said something that I fully and completely agreed with. This rarely happens.

Someone had sent her a photo of Barack Obama supposedly on Veteran's Day that showed a bunch of soldiers saluting while he just stood there. The implication was that his refusal to salute American soldiers on Veteran's Day, of all days, showed just how un-American he is.

To her great credit, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, who is not an Obama fan, not only explained that the photo hadn't been taken on Veteran's Day at all; and not only explained that the reason Obama wasn't saluting was because he had just joined the soldiers who were saluting him as Commander-in-Chief on the podium and therefore had no reason to salute; and then not only went on to show several photos of the President saluting on other occasions; but then pleaded with right-wing extremists such as the one who had sent her the photo to please concentrate on the real issues rather than creating trivial ones based on falsehoods and misinformation. I really respected and admired her for doing so (and for me to say that about Elizabeth Hasselbeck is no small thing). But I agreed with her 100% and was glad she did what she did.

Then later the same day Chris Buttars, the anti-gay senator from West Jordan, Utah, said he is actually considering sponsoring a statewide bill that will mirror the one Salt Lake City just passed that protects gays, lesbians, and the transgendered from housing and employment discrimination. Of course, his cohort, Gayle Ruzicka (local anti-gay lobbyist) was not pleased by his announcement, which made me even happier.

When asked why he suddenly changed his mind after years of constantly pushing against gay rights, he said because the LDS Church had endorsed the Salt Lake City law, he saw no reason why he couldn't do the same. Of course, he did stress that he is still against gay marriage or gay adoption rights. But, still. To see such an "about-face" (even if he wouldn't have done it had the LDS Church not done it) was pretty jaw-dropping to see.

If all this weirdness this keeps up, the next thing you know Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck will announce they're socialists and are marrying each other. What is happening?!