English is NOT the troll’s first language. I doubt it even lives in the US but you can check the IP addy. I did suspect incarceration at one point and still do. So ttotally out of touch is why.

There is nothing remotely creative or original in the comments it posts. I skip most of them. Kind of like reading the newspaper or anything that aggregates – I only read what’s worth my time.

Half-assed, poorly spelled, massaged quotes from a millennia old collection of fables really don’t do it for me. Ban him, don’t ban him for me it’s nil change because I ignore him.

As for the gay thing, I’m not gay. As a kid in the early 60s, I spent every summer, all summer, for about 5 years in in MA – Rocky Neck in Gloucester. My Mum liked it there. lots going on, it was a great place. At least half if not more of the people were gay. They were fun and nice and they treated me kindly as a kid.

Most of the hetero people I know today couldn’t care less if someone is gay or not – if they ever did. Who but the ignorant really cares? People are judged by who they are and what they do, not by who they love, where they live, what they look like, how much money they have, etc. At least they are in my world.

I know it’s late but I thought I’d throw in my two cents.

My final thought on The S**l Collective, s/he/it is a putz, granted. But I sort of like the idea that he is out there acting as a poster child for homophobia because he’s such a putz. The clever fucks who run the GOP have learned from the Civil Rights Movement of the 60′s deployed all sorts of code to disguise their homophobia. It isn’t discrimination, it’s saving marriage. It isn’t hate, it’s protecting the children. And people, well-meaning people think “Well gee, marriage, kids, sure I want to protect those!” and it’s all very comfortable and they don’t have to think or worry that they’re being bigotted fucks.

But if they see something like S**l puking out garbage the well-meaning people might think “Ewww.” and the next time some snake in a suit comes along talking about protecting marriage from teh ghey, they might think of S**l and think “Ewwww.”

On a smaller scale the S**ls of the world serve the same purpose of that shithole Fred Phelch. They rub people’s noses in it and force them to take a side.

The real reason is more selfish. Ongoing interactions with smart, funny people that I find deeply enjoyable get dragged off the rails, turning into something stupid and banal, and I just know this little jerk is grinnin away in his little shack, snot crusted on his upper lip and skidmarks the size of truck tires in his underpants, not for any good reason, just because he shit on the pleasure of others.

And in this case, that includes MY pleasure.

And no. There is no way that’s ok…

mikey

If it were up to me, I’d ban the fucker. Sadly, No’s no-banning policy is commendable and almost always appropriate – in fact, mocking trolls is one of my favorite activities here. But the policy becomes self-defeating when you’re dealing with someone who’s persistently trying to sabotage the place.

Saul himself is easy for me to ignore, thanks to the technological marvel of Greasemonkey. Unfortunately, as MzNicky said… The problem is when he gets to others, as he intends to, and they understandably can’t resist the temptation to set the jackass straight. Then there goes the thread. Most people have learned to tune the jerk out, but a few people still make the mistake of responding, and a few people is all it takes.

The guy’s an annoyance, not a catastrophe. It doesn’t sound like he’s going to get blocked, so I’ll just have to learn to live with the bullshit. Still…

Many times. There’s a lot of crap in the archives.

I’m personally okay with banning Saul/Kevin/whoever.

I know all about the pie script and so forth. That’s not the problem. The comments that trolls drop are extremely skip-overable to me. The problem is when he gets to others, as he intends to, and they understandably can’t resist the temptation to set the jackass straight. Then there goes the thread.

There’s nothing wrong with showing an abusive jerk the door, guys. Doesn’t mean you’re squelching his right to be an abusive jerk; you’re just telling him you’ve got more respect for your other guests than to allow them to be subjected to his jerkitude.

I prefer to assume that everyone at a bar can whup my candy ass and not get into fights.

Homosexuals should all be deported to an island in the middle of the Pacific so that American society can be free of this immorality at last!

I’m Saul and I approve this message.

Wait, Hawaii is going gay now? Damn… I had a vacation planned there!

I always assumed he’s either a rabid an anti-Semite or he’s some RW prick hunting for a choice response that will prove the libs are anti-Semites.

Either way, he’s lame but in an ideal world all the twats like S**l would hang out by their computers typing shit and Purity Seizures would only occur in Second Life.

In this way, normally law abiding citizens won’t accidentally succumb to the temptation to punch them in the face.

Dude, check out the Prussian Blue threads. There’s racist crap on there that is orders of magnitude worse than anything Saul has written, dick though he may be.

Henry–I understand you loud & clear, and it can be frustrating. But at least here Saul is but one against many others who are not anti-LGBT. In many areas online and off, some people actually defend people like Saul on the grounds that they “just have a different set of values”. That doesn’t happen here, and Jillian is quite right. Snarky mockery will always save the day.

Nope, not the only one, I did/was too. Weird shit. I only gave the whole thing up when I found myself having the demons of “Reason and rationality” cast forcibly from me (at my own request).

I sort of thought “Hang on a minute, what did I just say?” and then I woke up.

I never really felt like the tongues thing worked for me though. Too many Ks and Zs.

These folks used to come to the one private school I went to, and they used to get really mad at me for not falling over. But I just flat out refused to do it. I always was in the Principal’s office for the weirdest shit. Like that and defying a teacher who said that my Jewish friends were going to hell. Or in Kansas, wearing a hat and then laughing at teachers’ alarm that hats are a sign of gang membership….lol…having moved from Miami, I just couldn’t stop laughing at that one.

But I have to take exception to your position that “it wouldn’t be tolerated if it were racist” comment. Somewhere in the archives – I don’t know where off the top of my head, and it’s five in the morning and I haven’t had my coffee yet – there are threads that have been hijacked by neo-Nazis. And, AFAIK, every single comment they made is still there, in all its crapulous brilliance, for the world to read in perpetuity, or as long as Seb pays the server bills, whichever comes first. In fact, on one of the things I’ve written on Michael Medved – the thing about slavery – some Nazi troll showed up a few days ago and started spouting about how the reason Medved did this is because he’s a Jew, and everybody knows Jews are the reason for American slavery and profited off it. Needless to say, this didn’t sit real well with me – despite my atheism, I was raised as a Jew, and will in some ways always be one. But the comment’s still sitting there, and it always will. And there’s a reason for that, which I’ll get to in a minute.

I don’t normally do this too often, but I guess it’s relevant here: I’m not straight. I’m bisexual. Almost all of my real-world friends are bi. Except for my best friend; he’s gay. And when it comes to the difficulties of the coming out process, I know that up close and personal, because my one friend is a bit younger than I am, so I’m the one who helped him with coming out. I’m the one who told him over and over again “you aren’t evil, you aren’t sick, you aren’t a sinner, you’re just gay, and that’s a good thing to be”. I took him to his first gay bar. In fact, the only place I hang out with straight people in any quantity is either at work or online.

The words used by some of these assholes are awful. There’s no denying that. But look at what they’re met with – total, hilarious mockery. And not just from the people who write the blog – from the readers (who are often more funny than the writers, I think). Think about what that does, how it takes the wind out of their sails. It’s the equivalent of being laughed off a stage. It means that your statements are so patently stupid that they’re beyond being confronted – all that’s left to do is to point out the obvious contradictions in every stupid thing you say and just laugh at them, and you.

One of our regular trolls is a jackass by the handle “Gary Ruppert”. Every time he makes some stupid comment about “gay = pedophile”, someone here posts a link to one of those online sex offender registries – apparently there is some guy in the midwest who’s real name is “Gary Ruppert” who is on a registry as an offender. Now, does it mean that our beloved Gary Ruppert is the same Gary Ruppert that is in the database? No – but implying that it’s the same guy is as stupid as implying (or outright stating) that all gays are child molesters. It’s cause for mockery, because the person saying this is saying something patently false, is too stupid to realize that it’s patently false, and has provided us with an absolutely delicious opportunity to turn the tables on him and make him look like either a child molester or an idiot (take your pick).

And for anyone reading this who might have agreed with milder versions of some of the offensive comments, the more socially acceptable versions of them (okay, maybe not ALL gays are pedophiles, but surely it’s not safe to have them around children), my hope is that by seeing their position treated to a good old fashioned reductio ad absurdum by the troll and then summarily mocked out of existence by the delightful commentariat, it will make them think twice about their beliefs. It will perhaps give them pause.

All I can say is that as a non-straight person, I have never felt unwelcome here. I have never felt as though if I were facing discrimination, someone here wouldn’t have my back. In fact, on that Michael Medved thread I mentioned earlier, while I did go back and ream that stupid Nazi poster a new asshole, it turned out that I didn’t really have to – one of the readers here had gotten there before I did and already made fun of him for being a stupid asshole. This crew is just tight that way. And you know what? I betcha the person mocking the Nazi probably didn’t even know I’m a Jew. They just did it because it’s the right thing to do. There are only two ways to get rid of Nazis – or homophobes, for that matter: mockery or weapons. If it ever reaches the point of the latter, all I can say is that I’m a fine shot with a .38, but I hate 9mm. But for now, mockery seems to be holding down the fort more or less (a bit less than more, really, which is why I want the hell out of this country). I’m glad of that – I don’t like violence. But I’m also nobody’s victim. Writing here, in fact, is one of the things I do to defend myself.

I know that you’re a member of the pivotal Stonewall generation, Henry – it’s one of the things you’ve written about here before. I can’t possibly thank you enough for everything you have done in your life to make mine so much better. You have, you know – I can pretty openly state here that I’m not straight, and not get any shit for it. I don’t worry about losing my job, I don’t worry about people showing up at my house and harrassing me for it, I don’t worry about being chased out of town or arrested. And I owe that to you. I want things to be even better for the next generation, though – I want anyone who ever makes a homophobic comment in public to be subjected to the worst possible embarrassment. I want anyone who thinks gays shouldn’t be able to get married to be made to feel like there is something wrong with THEM for a change. And you are absolutely right when you say that words are powerful – but it’s important to remember that the haters aren’t the only ones who have this power. WE have it, too. But if you censor the haters outside of extreme circumstances, you take that power away from yourself.

I’m sorry this is so long – my internal editor doesn’t wake up until 7. And I’m really sorry if you’ve been hurt by anything that’s been said here. I know what it’s like to have to deal with the wounds dealt you by a world that seems to hate you – maybe not in the same way that you do, but in ways that leave me wounded to this day. Those wounds never really heal, but my belief is that the best we can do is to try to turn those scars into something beautiful, and then wear them with pride. I regret if words said here have made that more difficult for you or your friends, but I hope you can see that it comes from a difference of opinion, and not gratuitous callousness.

He’s probably also a fake troll – we tend to get ‘em a lot.
I doubt that anyone was under the impression that Saul came here to voice sincerely-held opinions. He (she, they, it) has no interest in consistency, truth, logic, or good faith argument; no interest in responses. He’s only here to shout out any ugly crap that comes to mind, and to suck Teh Funny out of a thread. The goal seems to be to bore people… drive away visitors and regular commentors… make the place inhospitable.
Think of the Saul infestation as a form of sabotage — a Denial-of-Funny Attack.

My concerns seem rather petty from the perspective of Henry Holland’s comment up-thread, so I’ll shut up now.