Carl Palladino’s e-mails

Yes, this is one of the choice pictures forwarded by our REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR to a long list of professional associates a while back. This is the guy who took the pulpit last week in front of a congregation of Orthodox Jews to rail against homosexuality.

That the Tea Party, while crowing about how it represents decent, Christian America against the dangers of socialism, should have managed to elevate this baboon to within striking distance of the governorship leaves one speechless. And our friends in the news media, who would be having apoplectic fits were the candidate a dastardly liberal, treat the guy seriously.

Palladino’s notorious e-mails were well known before the primaries, but that didn’t stop the rabid faithful from nominating him, the better to enjoy his thuggish threats to ‘take a baseball bat’ to his political enemies.

We didn’t have to wait long for what that meant after the candidate publicly threatened to ‘take out’ a reporter he didn’t like—from the Murdoch-owned Post, no less. Equal opportunity for hit men.

Palladino is scum and will soon disappear forever unless the earth has shifted dangerously on its axis. But what is really unforgivable is these elements of Orthodox Jewish leadership pandering to this shit.

This has not been a normal week in New York. A young kid threw himself off the George Washington Bridge after being publicly humiliated by his college roommate for being gay. A horrific gang-based scene of systematic torture occurred in the Bronx when teenagers discovered that a potential member had had sexual contact with a guy.

That any Jews of any religious or ideological conviction should choose THIS moment, in the midst of frightful, hate-based physical assaults and deadly harassment, to join in attacks on the victims is appalling and morally bankrupt. Jews of all people should be capable of recalling what societies turn into when they allow minorities to be treated in this fashion.

Even the Catholic leadership, whose positions on sexual topics are well known, have not publicly joined hands with the loathsome Palladino, whose professes to be a member of their institution. But these rabbis--apparently outliers even among the orthodox--outdo the cardinals for arrogance and insensitivity.

All in all, a great week for the cause of agnosticism.