Well, so much for the Thacker nomination. (See “Oh, Goody!” immediately below.) They pulled the plug.
A Christian activist chosen by the White House for a presidential AIDS advisory panel is withdrawing his name under pressure after characterizing the disease as the “gay plague,” along with other anti-homosexual statements.
Seems Bush appointed Thacker without having any idea of what he believed in. But it turns out the rest of the commission is nothing to write home about, either. Thanks to Atrios for the lead; he also links to a MWO take-down of Andrew Sullivan’s air of outrage at finding gay-bashing in the Bush Administration.
I see that Sullivan has won the coveted Claude Raines Memorial Gambling Awareness Award for this one. That hardly seems fair to Bush, whose protestation of surprise that someone who used to work for Bob Jones University turns out to be a wee bit homophobic is at least as hard to believe as Sullivan’s shock that Bush would appoint someone like that. Had I been on the selection committee, I would have proposed a split award. [UPDATE: The committee agrees.]
Note that the AP story that ran in the New York Times identifies Thacker as a “Christian activist.” That’s the sort of thing that makes me feel really, really good about being Jewish. But if I were a Christian, I’d be pretty upset about mass-media acquiescence in the attempt by a small group of political extremists to hijack the term “Christian” for their brand of quasi-religious lunacy.