1000 Words, 1000 Days: Day 137 – Bill Whatcott – Spreader Of Hate, Possibly Has A Tiny Penis
by Marty Schwartz on May 21, 201210 comments
You see this guy? I would never advocate violence toward another human being, but more than anyone else in Canada, this guy deserves to eat crap. I’m not using that as an expression either – I won’t encourage violence, but I will encourage any waiter / busboy / cook that sees this guy in their restaurant to find a way to sprinkle some fecal matter into his club sandwich.
I hesitate to call him a man… he is so, but only by its most vile, dishonorable definition. A better appellation might simply be a flabby cracker. A flacker.
So why does this flacker have me in such a flap? Well, Bill Whatcott is one of those free-speech advocates who demonstrates his advocacy by telling everybody else that how they live their lives is wrong. He’s one of those devout “Christians” who skim past the ‘God is the only judge’ stuff so that he can judge everyone else. Bill is the pustule on democracy and western freedom that reminds us that even liberty has its baggage.
Rather than intersperse today’s article with photos pertaining to my subject (I’d rather not look at any more flacker pics today), I’m just going to scatter in some pictures of things that make me smile. Think of them as meditative escapes to keep my disdain in check.
If you are gay, you are a personal affront to Bill Whatcott. You are invading his existence by breathing, and by being who you are. Bill wants to turn the public against you. He wants everyone to see you as diseased, sinful, and destructive to society. He has distributed leaflets door to door, depicting images of diseases that he believes exist because of gay sex. Pardon my bluntness, but someone needs to stick a dick in this guy’s mouth and shut him up.
Bill is a strict pro-life flacker. He has also plunked into mailboxes a variety of leaflets that depict dismembered fetuses in an attempt to sway people to his side. I’d bet if I handed him a leaflet featuring a photo of a topless woman as a part of my “Hooray Boobies” campaign, he’d call it filthy pornography. But this is about how Bill gets Bill’s message out.
He’s one of those shouting lunatics at your local abortion clinic. He has been convicted twice of yelling his protests right at the clinic door, not staying outside the mandatory 60-foot bubble zone. To Bill, the issue of abortion is not a complex, multi-faceted situation open to intelligent debate. No, Bill wants to shout his opinion in your face, and he’ll break the law to do it if he has to.
Bill doesn’t want you to be Muslim. He claims Muhammad is a ‘man of violence’, and has distributed flyers that say such. The flyers also contained images of a beheaded Indonesian girl, just in case you didn’t get the message. Bill sees no irony in propping up his campaigns of hatred with a phony claim to pure Christianity; Bill only uses the parts of scripture that fuel his judgments.
Bill has run for office. Of course – people so deluded that they have a monopoly on truth and justice are often the ones who want to run the show. In 1999, he ran in the Ontario provincial election and finished eighth. He finished fourth in 2000 when he ran for mayor of Regina, and in 2007 he finished sixth in his race to be the mayor of Edmonton. Bill will never be elected to public office because a platform of hate and intolerance doesn’t win an election. Perhaps Bill would be advised to run for office in the Galactic Empire; he might have a future there.
In 2010, the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal decided Bill was flagrantly discriminating against homosexuals, and fined him $17,000. This was overturned on appeal, because the debate regarding how children are taught sexuality is “inherently controversial,” and also “sometimes polemical and impolite.” Handing a child a brochure that graphically depicts some made-up exclusively homosexual disease so that the child develops a fear and disdain for gay people is “impolite.” This is how our system works.
This ruling was appealed all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court. Bill showed up in Ottawa and got his ass thrown off the Carlton University campus because he tried to squeeze in a little more flyer delivery there while he waited for his court appearance. More interveners showed up both for and against Bill than have shown up for any other Supreme Court case in the history of Canada. I have no news on how this turned out – the only info on Google News is a report from the next day, so nothing since last October.
Bill once blew a guy for drugs. That’s not libel – he told the Montreal Gazette that back in his sinful past he traded sexual favors with a male drug dealer in exchange for product. I just want to make sure that’s out there, and that we all remember that deal next time this flacker hits the news.
He’s a nurse. No, really. He also got fined and suspended for intimidating staff and patients outside a Planned Parenthood clinic. That was overturned though – he wasn’t representing himself as a nurse at the time, so here we get into the murky grey of free speech.
Bill will probably never read this article, but you never know. I have managed to reach out and touch the worlds of Kevin Smith, Ben Folds, friends of the late Bobby Fuller, and of course the Lord of the Joust. Who’s to say Bill won’t keep up on what people are saying about him?
Just in case, this part is for you, Bill. Just stop it already. Nobody cares. You’re filled with hatred and loathing, and you use God as an excuse for it. Maybe White-Power Bill hates White-Power Bill. (that’s an Arrested Development joke – you probably won’t get it)
You don’t want to make out with another guy, that’s fine. No one says you have to. But if your neighbors want to get busy with their bad selves behind closed doors, it does not affect you. Are you still with me, Bill? It does not affect you.
And if you’re right, if there is a God and He truly hates abortionists, Muslims and homosexuals, how’s about letting Him sort this shit out on His terms? You deserve the right of free speech like we all do, and there’s no doubting that the crap you spew is the ultimate test of that freedom. But for now, why not let shit go, spread some joy instead of hate, and let people get on with getting it on in their private lives?
And go get yourself laid, you pompous, ignorant little flacker.
Probably a Patriots fan too.
— Marty Schwartz is currently in the midst of a silly writing experiment here, where he can be seen writing a thousand words a day for a thousand days. He missed a week in cross-posting to the Sapien, but that was only because his articles lately have been in depth and award-winning. Well, “award”-winning.
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10 comments
Carl West on November 24, 2012 at 1:39 am. #
Two comments on two particular things you said:
“I hesitate to call him a man… he is so, but only by its most vile, dishonorable definition. A better appellation might simply be a flabby cracker. A flacker. . . . He’s one of those devout “Christians” who skim past the ‘God is the only judge’ stuff so that he can judge everyone else.”
1) It seems, rather, that Bill Whattcott has read the Bible, as opposed to other individuals. Indeed, if he is a follower of Christ, he might very well agree with your characterization of himself as being “most vile, dishonorable”. God consistently reveals Himself to be absolutely holy and pure, whereas man is revealed to be lawless and defiled: Compare with what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans chapter 3:9-18, or in Ephesians 2:1-3. That is why Whattcott needed, as a vile man, separated from God and under his wrath and judgment, to be rescued from that wrath by the sacrificial death of Jesus as his substitute. God placed all Whattcott’s sins and shame on Jesus, who took the penalty for his sins: separation from God, death.
2) I cannot help but notice the immense vortex of irony that has been generated when you wrote this post, alluding to ‘Judge not lest ye be judged’ (you cannot even identify what chapter and verse of the book it is in, and you certainly did read the bible carefully enough to quote it, let alone precisely). This passage, located in Matthew 7:1, if one of the most misquoted passages. I think Whattcott has read this and understands it. As D.A. Carson said in his Expositor’s Bible Commentary: “Jesus’ demand here is for his disciples not to be judgmental and censorious” (p. 183).
D.A. Carson elaborated earlier saying, “The verb krino (‘judge’) has a wide semantic range: ‘judge’ (judicially), ‘condemn,’ ‘discern.’ It cannot here refer to the law courts, any more than 5:33-37 forbids judicial oaths. Still less does this verse forbid all judging of any kind, for the moral distinctions drawn in the Sermon on the Mount require that decisive judgments be made. Jesus himself goes on to speak of some people as dogs and pigs (v. 6) and to warn against false prophets (vv. 15-20). Elsewhere he demands that people ‘make a right judgment’ (John 7:24; cf. 1 Cor 5:5; Gal 1:8-9; Phil 3:2; 1 John 4:1). All this presupposes that some kinds of ‘judging’ are not only legitimate but mandated.” (p. 183)
I see nothing wrong with Whattcott warning people that they will go to hell unless they repent. That is not be condemning; it is being loving. If he wanted to be condemning, he would completely ignore them and right them off as unworthy of his energies and time. He would tell them, “You are going to hell” because you are vile, dishonorable etc. and there is nothing you can do about it.
The irony is that you condemn Whattcott for what you yourself do, and not only that, but you allude to the passage that clearly shows this kind of behavior to be wrong, impugning yourself.This is surely irony of epic proportions.
I would suggest that you “refrain from commentary that is derogatory to other users, abusive, off-topic, includes too many links, or uses excessive foul-language.”
Matt Payne on November 24, 2012 at 9:10 am. #
Hmmm, a deeply fundamentalist claim on the profound Christianity of persecuting your fellow citizens in the name of saving their souls. I’m guessing you approve of the Inquisition, eh? And all this talk of hell is quite tiresome–one gets it quite a bit down here in Georgia. Too many Chrisitans deploy this sort of psychological terrorism, in the name of “love,” to denounce abortion, homosexuality, dancing to that jungle music, attending the picture shows or, if the Amish are right, driving motor cars. So many things to go to hell for, so little time . . .As for all this Bible literalism, one should point out that one of the greatest of the early Christian theologians, Origen, could find no support for eternal domination in the Bible (which led to his later anathematized for his idea of universal reconcilliation in which even the Devil would eventually be forgiven by a merciful creator). As the same fellows who kow-towed to state power in the form of Constantine frowned on such ideas of mercy (oh, it’s fine to give once you’ve been brain-washed into our own dogma. Sometimes.) Origen found himself out of fashion. Should note, the guy was quite a fundamentalist and literally followed Matthew 19:12, and made himself a eunuch for God. I don’t see the fundamentalists lining up to follow that Biblical injunction but I think it is really consistent with the Biblical message. And no skating with the “Go forth and multiply” passage, the Russian khlysty were quite capable of having scads of kids and then castrating themselves. I think everyone is a bit selective in their use of Bible verses, no? And I’ll agree to outlaw sodomy when you agree to stoning to death children who disobey their fathers. That is all.
Marty Schwartz on November 24, 2012 at 10:36 am. #
Hi Carl,
Thank you for responding in such detail. I feel I can only address certain aspects of your comment however. You appear to have a solid knowledge of the bible. I do not. I was born a Jew and raised to take my pick among the faiths, to view humanity and morality from a practical perspective, not one founded in faith.
I have no issue with people of faith; I even married one. But when one’s faith is pushed on another in an obnoxious, intrusive way, that gets my spine a-tinglin’. This man yells at people on their way in and out of abortion clinics. He doesn’t try to engage them in civil discourse, offer an alternative opinion, or point out that their fetus has fingernails a-la Juno. He screams his beliefs in their faces. He handed out leaflets to children in order to convince them that homosexuality is amoral and depraved.
Think about that, Carl. If these children are gay, Bill just taught them how to hate themselves. How can you give this guy a pass? “Judge not lest ye be judged” was something I quoted as because it makes sense pragmatically, not because it’s in the bible.
Dressing up Bill’s hate-speech against homosexuals as ‘loving’ is twisted and deluded. He believes they are going to hell – good for him. Muslims have different beliefs over heaven and hell; Jews don’t even believe in hell. Believe what you want, but don’t try to push that on other people in such a graphic and filthy way if those other people aren’t hurting anybody.
And as to your statement of the irony of my words – I thank you for the chuckle. When someone is hurting another person, I don’t think it’s unfair for that to be pointed out as a negative thing. Am I judging Bill? In my mind, sure – I think he’s a douchebag. Am I yelling in his face? Am I handing him a leaflet with a graphic and grotesque depiction of what I really think of him? No, I’m writing my opinion about him on the internet, amid photos of bacon and puppies. If you don’t like it, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but you won’t convince me that telling kids being gay earns you an eternity of fire and brimstone is anything but deplorable.
And Matt, I have a 15-year-old daughter. Can I really throw rocks at her when she disobeys me? Is this permitted in the deep south? Damn, I should look into this…
Carl West on November 24, 2012 at 2:02 pm. #
Marty, I will press the point once more. Jesus said not to judge or you too will be judged. As I have already shown with reference to D.A. Carson’s exposition on the passage, Jesus clearly was speaking of condemning others, i.e. damning others. I already showed how you did that by calling him a vile human being: “I hesitate to call him a man… he is so, but only by its most vile, dishonorable definition.” This is where you begin to vilify this man for his religious message. I will reproduce more of your condemnations and malicious comments below:
“. . . more than anyone else in Canada, this guy deserves to eat crap. . . . I won’t encourage violence, but I will encourage any waiter / busboy / cook that sees this guy in their restaurant to find a way to sprinkle some fecal matter into his club sandwich.”
“Pardon my bluntness, but someone needs to stick a dick in this guy’s mouth and shut him up.”
“Just in case, this part is for you, Bill. Just stop it already. Nobody cares. You’re filled with hatred and loathing, and you use God as an excuse for it.”
“And go get yourself laid, you pompous, ignorant little flacker.”
You have publicly pronounced in a hurtful and unfair fashion your condemnation of the man, saying what he deserves (to eat crap, to have his club sandwich sprinkled with fecal matter; to be shut up by being raped in the mouth), what is in his heart (hatred and loathing, i.e. he is a hypocrite you just uses God as a pretense), what he knows (he is ignorant).
Curiously, Marty, you went on to say:
“I have no issue with people of faith; I even married one. But when one’s faith is pushed on another in an obnoxious, intrusive way, that gets my spine a-tinglin’.”
“When someone is hurting another person, I don’t think it’s unfair for that to be pointed out as a negative thing.”
Now you think it is wrong to push your faith on someone in “an obnoxious, intrusive way” and to “hurt another person”. This is exactly what you are doing – to him, imposing your moral standards on Bill Whatcott. This is exactly what you are doing, making hurtful, malicious and pronouncing condemnation on him over and over.
Do you not see that all your comments that I produced above are attacks on his worth as a human being, condemnations of who he is in his heart (isn’t God the only one who can see what is in our heart)? Can you not see your own hatred? Maliciousness? Obnoxiousness?
I think that Jesus’ elaboration is fitting here:
“Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-5)
Now this is ironic. You quote Jesus to show how Whattcott is in the wrong for ‘judging’. In reality, you are condemning him for what you yourself are doing to him and people who take their faith seriously.
Now as for Whattcott’s views on Gay people, I think you are misrepresenting him. He does not want them to hate themselves; he is telling them to repent, to turn from their sins. I doubt he would equate that with turning off their same-sex attractions. That simply means to stop engaging in a lifestyle of homosexual sex and all other violations of God’s law (that is what a sin is), and trust in the gracious mercy of God in Christ Jesus, who died for them and became sin for them so that they could be reconciled to a Holy God. The ultimate issue is where their eternal souls will go, not their self-esteem.
Now as for the talk about hell. I was not the one, nor was Whattcott who first spoke about it. In the Bible, Jesus actually talks about hell more than any other prophet, including Daniel and Isaiah (all of whom were Jews, btw –including Jesus). Consider for example Matthew 5:22, in the same sermon where Jesus said not to judge (condemn): “22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother[a] will be liable to judgment; whoever insults[b] his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell[c] of fire.” Jesus was zealously in peoples faces (especially the Pharisees: cf. Matthew 23), because he cared about their eternal souls and loved righteousness.
Nick Glossop on November 24, 2012 at 11:14 am. #
Hey Marty,
if you want to throw rocks at your daughter, you’d better be quick about it. Most places you can only get away with that as punishment for simple disobedience until she turns 16. Then, sadly, you’ll have to put the rocks away – until she gets married and commits an infidelity, then it’s game on again!
Marty Schwartz on November 25, 2012 at 11:06 am. #
Carl,
Again, I am not ‘vilifying the man for his religious message.’ It’s how he delivers the message that I find villainous.
The part I take issue the most with your above comment is the assumption I am doing exactly what he is doing. I am not pushing my beliefs on Bill or anyone – firstly, Bill probably won’t read my article. Secondly, my religious beliefs are not stated here at all. That I believe someone shouldn’t act this way is not a religious belief, it’s common sense.
What you call my hatred is actually disgust. What you call my obnoxiousness is… well, that’s a judgment call and you’re welcome to it. Again, I am happy to hear of someone who has embraced their faith and found solace and purpose in their lives because of it. But leave me out of it.
I like how you excuse Bill with this: “He does not want (gay people) to hate themselves; he is telling them to repent, to turn from their sins.” Guess what Carl… gay people are not sinning, except in the eyes of people who subscribe to that particular faith. The world works on many faiths. Bill is informing these human beings (and they need to be seen as humans, not as ‘gays’) that who they are is wrong, what they feel is wrong. How is that not a horrible thing to do to somebody? Imagine being one of those people, struggling with the knowledge that you are in a minority and that a certain percentage of the population believe who you are is amoral and deserving of eternal hellfire? Bill is inflicting emotional pain on people, and I judge that as a vile and wrong act, just as I judge murder and rape to be vile and wrong.
I understand Jesus speaks of hell in the Bible. You have to understand that the Bible is not truth and/or fact to me – I am not a Christian. My morality stems from something else. That doesn’t make me right or you wrong or vice-versa. I will spread my beliefs, sure, it’s my prerogative to do so. But I’m condemning another man causing hurt to others and feel no need to apologize for doing so. It’s not the same thing.
(and I hope it’s clear, I do not condone someone being raped in the mouth or actually sprinkling feces on someone’s food… it’s exaggeration-comedy we secular folk occasionally enjoy.)
Carl West on November 25, 2012 at 12:43 pm. #
1)How do you define bullying? and
2) What distinguishes what you are doing (you admit you are condemning the man and calling him disgusting) from bullying?
You mentioned that a lot of what you said is ‘not serious’ or you did not actually ‘mean it,’ i.e. it was just a joke. Bullies, from my experience, often use humor to degrade other people they pick on.
3) Do your children also make such ‘comedic’ comments about other people, of other races, genders, religion at school? That they should be shut up by being violated at the mouth or have their food sprinkled with feces? That they are barely human? What would your attitude be towards that behavior. (Try to be somewhat consistent)
4) Wouldn’t adults or children find your comments, if directed to them, hurtful emotionally?
One final thing: I think your position that you are just speaking to his methods is not true. A) You have already indicated that you think that Bill Whattcott is insincere (just using God as a pretense). B) You have also said that his message is actually at issue: that homosexuality is a violation of God’s law (i.e. a sin). So it seems like you are speaking out of both sides of your mouth (‘I only find his methods objectionable, not his religious faith or beliefs; his religious beliefs and his sincerity are foremost objectionable bc….’).
Let me ask you a question: Why is saying that a particular form of conduct is wrong, emotionally hurtful (i.e. wrong)?
Don’t you acknowledge that this has nothing to do with methods and that it is wrong of you to say what is in his heart, or that he is insincere without any proof?
Marty Schwartz on November 26, 2012 at 1:01 am. #
Hi Carl,
I’ll do my best to address your comments.
1) Here’s the definition I found online: “Use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants.” Works for me.
2) I have no ‘superior strength’, nor am I looking to intimidate Bill. I don’t expect I will affect his approach but if I do, hey, great. Anyway, writing a single article that calls bullshit on someone who is harming others is not tantamount to bullying them.
3) My children, to my knowledge, are not hateful toward any group of people. Nor am I. They are, on occasion, barely human, but that falls under the definition of teenagers so that’s expected.
4) Sure, that’s possible. My comments were directed at one man – a guy who goes door to door with leaflets that depict ‘diseases’ that one can acquire through being a homosexual. If somehow my comments hurt that man emotionally, I feel no remorse. I stand my position that he is a douchebag.
Your next point is a bit more complex. I’ll try to be clear though: his methods disgust me. What’s in his heart – I couldn’t care less. He thinks gay people are bound for hell, he thinks anyone who doesn’t accept Jesus as their savior is blatantly wrong, that’s all fine. By his beliefs, I’m sure my spiritual GPS was locked in on hell decades ago. I live (as much as I can) by my own morality and I’m cool with it.
But when one’s beliefs mean they must try to ‘save’ others by such methods, I can’t help but find it disgusting. I think where you found my comments mixed is because yes, I believe that simply telling gay people that they will burn for eternity for who they are is wrong.
Carl, I have a good friend in his late teens who recently came to accept that he is gay. He will never come out to his parents because he believes they will tell him he will burn forever for this – they have implied such beliefs as they raised him. I have seen him struggle, and it pains me that he has to go through that. He’s kind, compassionate, artistic, giving, loyal, and several hundred other such adjectives. If he were to pop open his mailbox and find one of Bill’s flyers, it would upset him tremendously. And to what end? So Bill could feel self-satisfied that he tried to ‘save a soul’? Pardon my language, but fuck that.
To your next question: “Why is saying that a particular form of conduct is wrong, emotionally hurtful (i.e. wrong)?” This one is easy. We’re not talking about a particular form of conduct, Carl. We’re talking about who a person is. A person is not gay by choice. A person can choose to accept or deny their feelings, but we is who we is.
This has everything to do with his methods. It’s not like he’s taking a gay friend aside and advising him to change his ways – he is telling countless anonymous strangers one block at a time that being gay is wrong. If you don’t see how that is deplorable, then you and I have very different ideas of how people should treat one another.
Carl West on November 26, 2012 at 6:28 am. #
We are speaking past each other.
Notwithstanding, Marty, I have enjoyed this interchange with you. I appreciate your tact, especially in the last point. I wish you well.
Marty Schwartz on November 26, 2012 at 7:00 pm. #
As much as we vehemently disagree with one another, it was refreshing to engage in an internet discussion that was – certainly by cyber-standards – civil. Thanks for reading.