Friday Philosophy: The Unbearable Sorrow that is Mr. Tam

Mr. Tam admits he, at the very least, helped author the fourteen words central to Proposition 8.

Brian Leubitz wrote a piece at Prop 8 Trial Tracker, entitled William Tam: He’s like that Cute Ignorant Uncle that everybody cringes at.

No.  I disagree.  There is nothing cute about Hak-Shing “William” Tam.

I expected at any moment for him to just stand up and say “just kidding! Got you big-time, you don’t think I actually believe that garbage, do you? Ha-ha!”

Methinks that let’s Mr. Tam off the hook too easily.

Now Mr. Tam has tried to extricate (pdf) himself from being a defendant/intervenor in this case.  He says it is because he fears the danger he and his family will face if he becomes more recognizable.  He says he is afraid of being attacked.

He claims that someone flattened a tire on his car.  And someone stole his yard sign, or attempted to do so.

Attacked Mr. Tam?  Someone punctured all four tires on my car.  Someone put cat and dog shit in my mailbox.  Someone tried to run over me with a car.  And I was assaulted a couple of times.

All because I had the audacity to prove to my community that transsexual people exist.

It got so bad that I even felt a bit of elation when a gang of high school kids assaulted me and another lesbian outside a coffeehouse while yelling, “Dykes!”

Other transwomen may understand the why of that elation.

But you would prefer that transfolk not exist, not gays or lesbians or bisexuals.  Or, at the very least, that your world be kept “clean” of those notions.

Well, Mr. Tam, yours is a very dirty- and small-minded world, from all appearances.

Say what you will about people like Mr. Tam, but I beg of you to disabuse yourselves of the notion that they don’t really think like he does.  They do.  This isn’t cynicism.  This is hatred.  And just because they base their feelings on the Bible, it does not therefore become less than hatred.

One by one, other states would fall into Satan’s hands.  Every child, when growing up, would fantasize marrying someone of the same sex. More children would become homosexuals.

At Mr. Tam’s website, which is as disgusting a compilation of filth as I have seen in a long long time, I has a youtube purporting to be made by an ex-lesbian ex-Satanist who “saw the light”.  

Really, Mr. Tam?  GLBT are Satanists?  Where in your Bible does it say this?

Where in your Bible does it call for defamation on your part?

I know Mr. Tam has tried to disown what he’s responsible for and the pro-Prop8 defense has tried to disown Mr. Tam, but it doesn’t wash.

homosexuals are 12 times more likely to molest children

–source:  “Could be something I read”

…when we know that the vast majority of pedophiles are heterosexual men, even those who molest little boys…

they will want to legalize prostitution next

-source:  I saw some homosexuals hanging around there.  [San Francisco Proposition K headquarters]

their agenda was legalizing sex with children

–source:  Canada and Europe, two places with marriage equality, have a legal age of consent of 13 or 14

Age of consent in Canada is 16.  Europe is not one country.  Age of consent in Alaska, however, is 13 unless the other party is over 3 years older.

But aside from that, age of consent has nothing to do with Proposition 8.

Lord help me, I’ve got to show this whole thing (NARTH is the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality.  B stands for Boies, T for Tam.  Transcription provided by Teddy Partridge):

B: It says, “Science proves homosexuality is a changeable sexual preference.” See that?

T: Yes. I see that.

B: What science were you referring to?

T: I did not write this.

B: Do you know what science is being referred to?

T: Yes.

B: You do? What science?

T: Dr Spitzer, in 1973, at EPA(?), wrote that homosexuality is not a disease, because of that what I learned was that homosexuality being taken out of being a medical condition that needed treatment.

B: Not a disease?

T: Part of normal human behavior.

B: Normal human behavior?

T: Yes, then Dr Spitzer proved that some homosexuals could turn back.[SURRENDER, DOROTHY!!! — TP] and it was not genetically wired, it was a preference.

B: Did Dr Spitzer say it was not genetically wired.

T: No, it was Frances Collins, the one who mapped the human genome.

B: So he says sexual orientation can be changed?

T: Yes.

B: Written where?

T: THE NARTH WEBSITE.

B: Is NARTH website a source of objective scientific information?

T: I believe them.

B: What is the American Psychological Association say about sexual orientation?

T: I don’t know.

B: Never tried to find out?

T: No.

B: You thought it was better to get your scientific information from NARTH than APA?

T: Yeah, I believe what NARTH says.

There we arrive at the crux of it.  Mr. Tam made a concerted effort to search for evidence to support his beliefs.  And no effort whatsoever to learn anything else.

Why?

We hope to convince Asian Americans that gay marriage will convince more children to experiment with the gay lifestyle, a lifestyle that comes with lots of disease.

B: This next page is more explicit about social moral decay, where it says [same sex marriage is] not a civil right, compares to pedophilia, polygamy and incest. Do you believe that?

T: Yes, I do.

William Tam:  I believe if marriage is beyond a man and a woman that any person can come to ask for marriage for incest and polygamy.  If this is a civil right, what would stop anyone from using marriage?

Answer:  We are not you, Mr. Tam.  People don’t think the worst, like you apparently do.  If you were my child, I’d tell you to get your mind out of the gutter.

Mr. Tam, you are not an evil man because of your religion.  But you are an evil man.  You are an evil man because what you have chosen to add to it…and the knowledge which is available which you have apparently deliberately chosen not to add.

Other people may view you as cute and/or eccentric.  I see you as someone who has chosen to abandon the meaning of his faith and the use of his human capabilities of logic and reason in the name of hatred.

And that is neither cute nor eccentric.

Twisted and Broken Logic