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.

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

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.

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

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.

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

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

18 comments

Skip to comment form

    • Robyn on January 23, 2010 at 00:08
      Author

    I’ve been following the coverage at both the Courage Campaign and Firedoglake.

    Today the defense is attempting to prove that homosexuality doesn’t really exist.

  1. I’m reading what this guy Tam has to say, and believe it or not, I cannot think of a single, clever, snarky thing to say about him.  It’s like my mind is on tilt (pardon reference to analog machinery).  And not in a good way.  I’m muttering about George Bernard Shaw being too charitable when he said,

    “He was, I believe, not in the least an ill-natured man: very much the opposite, I should say; but he would not suffer fools gladly.”

     

  2. Mormonism:  Ingrained or learned?  Christianity as a whole: Ingrained or learned?  Maybe we should just make the whole culture adhere to Judaism.  It’s just simpler to have one religion, and people with all these varying religions just inconvenience society and make things more complicated for everyone.  And why certain people should have “special rights” because of their religion, I have no idea.

    What’s that you say?  The First Amendment?  Well, it’s a pesky one, for sure, but if we can ignore the 14th Amendment we can ignore the First (and have been doing it for a while on lots of other things).  Lots of people think of the First Amendment as sacrosanct, but it really isn’t any more sacrosanct than any other amendment the government tends to ignore.

    And, no, It may not be cute, but it is “cutesy” to me when homobigots claim to speak for all of “society”.

    • Edger on January 23, 2010 at 00:51

    Just got this via email from Kelli Busey of planetransgender and OOIBC Member, and very active with Transgender Foundation of America.

    Memorial for Myra Ical Transgender Foundation of America Hosting

    A public memorial and candlelight vigil will be held on Monday, January 25 at 6 pm to honor Myra Ical, whose body was found last Monday in the 4300 block of Garrott St near Richmond Avenue.

    The memorial will include two moments of silence, one for Ms. Ical and another for other transgender Houstonians who have been mur…dered whose crimes remain unsolved, as well as a moment of noise-making to recognize that it is silence that allows the perpetrators of crime to go unpunished.

    The time for silence has ended! Myra’s body was discovered at 2 in the afternoon at a busy intersection. Somebody saw something or knows something about this crime. We want to encourage people to make noise about the violence that is inflicted on our community.

    The press release sent by the Houston Police Department identifying the victim used male pronouns to refer to Ms. Ical, whose legal name was Ruben Dario Ical.

    The local media took their cue from HPD, consistently referring to Myra as ‘he’ which is disrespectful of her memory. Every media style book in the country, including the Associated Press, is clear that transgender people should be referred to using pronouns that reflect their gender identity.

    We are thankful that HPD is working hard to solve this crime, but they have a duty to communicate with the public in a way that respects the victim.

    Houston Police have no leads in the case. Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Transgender Foundation of America at 713-520-8586.

    • Robyn on January 23, 2010 at 01:32
      Author

    …in Orange, for those so inclined.

    • Big Tex on January 23, 2010 at 23:31

    hearing these homophobes talk as if they’re being persecuted.  They don’t know persecution. My nephew, who is gay, can tell these people about persecution. I know he’s been to the emergency room at least twice because he got his ass kicked by rednecks who couldn’t handle the fact that he didn’t hide his sexual preference like it was something to be ashamed of. He ended up moving to the northeast to get away from it, and for the most part he doesn’t get fucked with nearly as much, but even there he occasionally has problems.

    William Tan doesn’t know shit about the kind of fear that GLBT people have to live with on a daily basis, just for being who they are.

Comments have been disabled.