Maybe the liberal fringe left is where Janet Napolitano should be concentrating her Homeland surveillance….
I felt very threatened. I’m not allowed to say how everything got through, but my agent got letters and faxes and e-mails. I got letters at the ice rink, somebody found my phone number. All these crazy fur people. Security-wise, to stay in a hotel would be very difficult. There have been threats against me. I didn’t want to get hurt.
I’m just an easy person to pick on because I like fur. It’s easy to put your case against an athlete who is going to the Olympics. It’s a very good, easy thing for these activists. It’s a very scary thing. I’m a figure skater, I’m not some huge politician who gets these things all the time.
— Johnny Weir, U.S. figure skater
Brave people, these anti-fur activists.
While the gay community has been dogging Weir to come out, and he says his sexuality is no one’s business, how do you think these activists would be conducting themselves if Johnny Weir were Hulk Hogan-esque? Would they be stalking someone who could (and would) kick their ass, or is harassing a little metrosexual skating star their idea of brave?
I’m sure that there are activists stupid enough to harass huge guys, if they can do so from a safe distance. My cousin in DC has had a couple of strangers approach her about her fur collar or her ridiculous foxhat. But she ends up intimidating them, even though she’s just a little thing. However, she’s gotten nasty on-line comments and hatemail when her photo has appeared.
Harassment via technology makes everything easier for jerks.
BTW, Bob, since you’ve lived and worked in liberal areas, do you have a take on what kind of person becomes a member of the Sierra Club or PETA? My impression is that they tend to be urbanites who go on wilderness adventures but whose daily view of “nature” is suburban landscaping or the unkempt areas around drainage ditches and runoff-holding ponds.
I lived in L.A. and most of the people who are “advocates” seldom live by the lifestyles they would impose on others.
See: Barbra Streisand and Al Gore.
Old Bumper Sticker: “People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it’s safer to harass rich ladies than biker gangs.”
“Would they be stalking someone who could (and would) kick their ass, or is harassing a little metrosexual skating star their idea of brave?”
I say the latter…
“See: Barbra Streisand and Al Gore.”
yup.
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Years ago now, when in high school, I once thought I’d have to fight some stupid jocks who were picking on a very slight build and probably gay young fellow who was a figure skater.
I got halfway across the cafeteria to intervene and — the little fellow proceeded to very quickly deliver one of the most graceful multiple ass whippin’s I’ve ever seen.
Seems that along with studying figure skating after school, he had also spent a lot of time studying the finer side of martial arts with his Judo-kan.