Proud Homophobe on BP Spill Team

[MercuryJones]

Well this is interesting.

Jonathan I. Katz is one of a few scientists appointed by the Obama administration to work on the BP oil spill.

Katz's other distinction that he is an out and proud homophobe, who wrote:

Homophobia is the moral judgement that homosexual behavior (most of the arguments in this essay refer specifically to male homosexual behavior) is wrong. Homophobia is not like ethnic, racial or religious prejudice, which deny the intrinsic moral rights and value of other people. Rather, it is a moral judgement upon acts engaged in by choice.

[...] What of those cursed with unnatural sexual desires? Must they forever suppress these desires? Yes, but this is hardly a unique fate. Almost everyone has desires which must be suppressed. Most men and women think adulterous thoughts fairly often, and find themselves attracted to members of the opposite sex to whom they are not married. Morality requires them to suppress these desires, and most do not commit adultery, though they feel lust in their hearts. Almost everyone, at one time or another, covets another's property. They do not steal. Many people feel great anger or intense hatred at some time in their lives. They do not kill.

I am a homophobe, and proud.

Now I'm a distinctly practical gay man, and in part feel like if this is the physicist who has the know-how, I can hardly object to his appointment. And yet he's so over the top it's hard to reconcile, and I'm left wondering if this is really the only personal of his caliber available.

 

[justapixel]

Well this is interesting.

Jonathan I. Katz is one of a few scientists appointed by the Obama administration to work on the BP oil spill.

Headline misleading.

Should be: Obama appoints Proud Homophobe to BP Spill Team.

 

[MercuryJones]

Headline misleading.

Should be: Obama appoints Proud Homophobe to BP Spill Team.

If you wish.

Who did you vote for?

 

[NotThatCreative]

So long as he does the job he's been assigned I couldn't possibly care less.

 

[justapixel]

Who did you vote for?

Not for someone who would appoint a "proud homophobe".

 

[MercuryJones]

Not for someone who would appoint a "proud homophobe".

No? Who did you vote for?

 

[JB3]

So long as he does the job he's been assigned I couldn't possibly care less.

Somehow I think that you wouldn't be saying the same thing if the one doing the appointing wasn't a democrat or wasn't Obama.

 

[Seasoned]

The man is a proud ignoramus, but if he can clean the spill, let him go ahead and try. In the meantime, when isolated, away from whomever he now fucks, he may give in to what he has so far suppressed (if he has indeed suppressed it). These closet cases are soooo predictable.

 

[LonelyInVenice]

So long as he does the job he's been assigned I couldn't possibly care less.

Ditto. His prejudices have nothing to do with his ability to get his job done. Now, if he had been appointed to head up a civil rights task force, THEN I'd have a problem.

 

[NotThatCreative]

Somehow I think that you wouldn't be saying the same thing if the one doing the appointing wasn't a democrat or wasn't Obama.

Why do people assume that because I don't seize every opportunity to attack President Obama then I must necessarily be a democrat who's in love with him? I'm not, on both accounts. If this was President Bush I'd be just as fine with it. Katz's views on homosexuality have nothing to do with the problem in the gulf, so I don't care what they are. I'm not alone in this. Not every single thing has to be about the fight for our rights. It's okay to work with someone who thinks us all immoral and on the road to hell on something totally unrelated to LGBT issues.

As LonelyInVenice put it,

if he had been appointed to head up a civil rights task force, THEN I'd have a problem.

As it is, however, I stand by my original statement.

 

[jackoroe]

^The salient issue at hand is can he plug the leak. Outside of that, I really could care less what he thinks of us.

 

[MercuryJones]

Well.... I really do want to feel that way and not consider his homophobia.

At the same time, what has has to say is so illogical and outside the mainstream of science that it's hard for me to not wonder if his ability isn't tainted somehow.

 

[palemale]

Not only is he a grotesque homophobe, but he is also a climate change denier, it appears. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/17/jonathan-katz-member-of-s_n_579206.html

If that is the case, then I question his scientific judgment, as well as his repugnant views on homosexuality. I'd boot his sorry ass out the door.

 

[NickCole]

I don't know his qualifications but if he really is one of the best for this particular job I don't give a damn what he thinks about gays or anybody else.

For Christ's sake, people, priorities!

There's a job that needs to be done and it's important. Americans have to stop being distracted by irrelevant qualifiers like voting for a candidate because he's likable or what an expert dealing with a catastrophic oil spill thinks about gays.

Bad enough it took Obama nearly a full month to bother calling in these experts who should have been called in the first days. Let's please not waste more time by using irrelevant criteria for choosing the people who'll work to fix this mess.

 

[justapixel]

Not only is he a grotesque homophobe, but he is also a climate change denier, it appears.

Maybe he is qualified if he doesnt believe in the latest fads.

 

[palemale]

UPDATE: The homophobe got the boot. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/17/jonathan-katz-member-of-s_n_579206.html

 

[LonelyInVenice]

Maybe he is qualified if he doesnt believe in the latest fads.

You mean, like this "fad" where the first four months of this year were the warmest on record, globally speaking?

 

[White Eagle]

Ditto. His prejudices have nothing to do with his ability to get his job done. Now, if he had been appointed to head up a civil rights task force, THEN I'd have a problem.

Ditto your ditto.
The man is probably closeted as the ones most vocal are sometimes gay themselves. They just hate themselves.
Thanks, palemale for the update. I just hope he wasn't the one who would get the leak stopped. Crikey.

 

[NotThatCreative]

He isn't a climate change denier.

Global warming is real and much of it is probably anthropogenic. Nothing serious will be done about it, no matter how frantic or hysterical certain people become. Fortunately, global warming is probably good for humanity. Sit back, relax, and watch it happen.

That's the full paragraph from that part of his paper.

He also wrote, in the same paper:

There is no ``Emerging Consensus''. The physics of ``greenhouse gases'' and their effect on climate has been understood since the work of Tyndall (1862). The conclusion that anthropogenic emissions of these gases will likely warm the climate has been generally accepted for a century. It is a consensus, but it is not emerging or new. It has been there all along. Only a panicky fear of the consequences is new.

Huffington Post was twisting things to say he was a climate change denier. More accurately he saw no need for panic on the issue, but believes firmly humans are accelerating the warming of the globe.

Thanks for the update on him getting kicked out. It's a pity that such a big deal was made over his views on the completely unrelated subject of homosexuality that that was necessary.

 

[MercuryJones]

Well, I posted too soon, as he's out now.

I don't know enough to know if his expertise in physics was so unique that he was worth it. But I do really question his scientific and practical judgment based on what he wrote about gays.