Sandy Rios Not Sayin’, Just Sayin’, Being Gay Makes Amtrak Crash

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Did you know gay people can make trains crash? That’s the judgment of the American Family Association’s Sandy Rios said on Thursday that she’s not sayin’, she’s just sayin’:

“Now I am not saying, I am not inferring to those of you that are gay rights activists and like to monitor this show, I’m not inferring that this accident happened because he was gay, but I do think it’s an interesting part of the story and you can bet it would be edited out.”

Maybe because it doesn’t matter? Oh, of course it matters! This is the American Family Association, after all:

I would say this. I know of at least one situation – and I don’t know if this relates to Brandon in any way – but if people are going through some confusion that has to do with the very core of who they are, like, for instance, someone I know who was a pilot for a very large airline who started taking hormone shots to change genders, and put his entire plane at risk because he had an emotional, angry outburst to something that happened, and he was suspended for a very long time and then reinstated. So, I don’t know, but I think it is something to be discussed and I think it’s a factor and I’m doubting you will hear it anywhere else.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Mutter accused engineer Brandon Bostian of driving recklessly, but those are “inflammatory” comments, the National Transportation Safety Board’s Robert Sumwalt told CNN in response:

“You’re not going to hear the NTSB making comments like that. We want to get the facts before we start making judgments.”

You know, like Sandy Rios. That being gay made the train crash. The NTSB is actually going to look at “the track, the train signals, the operation of the train, the mechanical condition of the train and human performance.”

Imagine that.

Sumwalt told CNN that the investigation will take up to 12 months. Hold onto your seat, Sandy Rios, but they may decide that his being gay had nothing to do with it. You see, they are actually going to talk to him first. You know, before rushing to judgment.

Rios isn’t the first to say gays crash trains. As Right Wing Watch’s Brian Tashman points out, “Anti-gay pundits such as Charles C. Johnson and the editors of WorldNetDaily are making hay over the news that the engineer of the fatal Amtrak crash in Philadelphia on Tuesday was a supporter of gay rights and may be gay himself.”

Johnson says he “tell[s] the stories the mainstream media won’t.” I guess that’s true:

In fact, Charles C. Johnson seems a bit obsessed with Bostian’s genitals, as though they were a factor in the crash:

I might add this headline from culturecampaign.blogspot.com:

Homosexual Kills, Injures Hundreds on Amtrak Train, and this from the bizarrely-named Liberal Forum: Another gay man kills 5+ people….

Without an explanation of who the other gay men are who killed 5+ people.

I guess we need to start writing headlines which begin, “Heterosexual man kills his family and then himself,” or shall we reconfigure things to portray the 2011 Tucson shooting that killed a federal judge and very nearly U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, as “Heterosexual gunman kills six, wounds thirteen”?

As it happens, on that day in Tucson, a gay Hispanic man saved Giffords’ life. Shall we say he did it only because he was gay, or Hispanic, or that gay or straight, he was just a brave man with the proper training and a cool head, in the right place at the right time?

Gay or straight should not really be a headline.

Isn’t that just a little bit ridiculous? Are we actually going to say you kill people because you’re gay, that you crash planes or crash trains if you’re gay, but that you don’t if you’re straight?

Apparently, only heterosexuals never do anything wrong.

Oh wait…Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz was a heterosexual, yet he killed himself and 149 passengers on Flight 4U9525 on March 24, 2015.

I’m sure you’ll want to jump all over that one, right Sandy Rios? Ask yourself, what is it about being heterosexual that makes you want to kill other people?

Go ahead. We’ll wait right here for your findings.

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Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen's Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.

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