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Yet Another Idiot State Rep

By stcynic on December 4, 2004.

Perhaps I should start handing out an Idiot of the Day award, for crying out loud. Our latest example of rank stupidity: State Rep. John Graham Altman, of Charleston, South Carolina. He's all pissy because a South Carolina public broadcasting station aired a documentary about the life of gay residents of the South:

A Lowcountry legislator says he wants to cut South Carolina Educational Television's budget after it aired a documentary on gays in the South.

"I thought it was just social, leftist propaganda that they had no business airing," said state Rep. John Graham Altman, R-Charleston. "They were actively promoting homosexuality as an OK thing to do."

And therefore what? Are your kids so impressionable and weak that if they even hear a mention of the existence of gay people, they're gonna rush out and start singing It's Raining Men? I've said it before, I'll say it again - stupidity really should be painful.

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Sometimes stupidity IS painful Ed...Unfortunately, just not to the people "perpetrating" it.

Ah, good ol' John Graham Altman. What would we do without him? Saying stupid and bigoted things is his schtick. I'm not sure how he keeps getting reelected, other than the fact that he's a super-incumbant, and ironically, the guy who's run against him in the last two elections is openly gay. Altman won by a fairly narrow margin this November.

The local indie paper had a funny endorsement of Altman's challenger last election (I forget the challengers name). It went something like this:

"So it's John Graham Altman against... anyone? We support [challenger] because he's fully bipedal and qualifies for the election."

When guys like this Altman rant about "leftists" I can't help but wonder what they think of Canada. Fortunately I suspect with most of them its "what they WOULD think of Canada." In any case I suspect exposure to the idea that places like Canada, or the UK, or indeed pretty much every country in the industrialised world, have actual parties of socialists would make their heads explode.