Boner Candidate #1: THAT’S HOW CAMPAIGNS SHOULD BE RUN MATE.
Australian lawmaker Bob Katter drew online complaints on Wednesday after posting a campaign video in which he shoots dead political opponents just days after a gunman killed 49 people at an Orlando gay nightclub. The video, uploaded to his social media channels, features two men wearing shirts for Australia’s major political parties, the conservative Liberal Party and center-left Labor Party, putting up an “Australia for sale” placard. Seconds later the video cuts to a smiling Katter, blowing smoke from the barrel of a gun as the camera pans down to the two men apparently lying dead on the ground. But the timing of the ad, just three days after gunman Omar Mateen shot dead 49 people in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, drew sharp rebukes on social media. Katter, whose minor Australian Party focuses on issues related to rural Australia, denied that he was attempting to be deliberately controversial with the video. Australia is set to hold national elections on July 2. “I’m not giving an explanation. You can go and watch the advertisement because it’s an anti-selling off Australia advertisement,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Boner Candidate #2: A LADY VETERAN? COME ON!
Women have taken great strides toward gender equality in the military, but it seems there’s still a long way to go before misogynists realize this. Rebecca Landis Hayes was running errands at a shopping center in Concord, North Carolina, on Monday when she pulled into a parking stall reserved for veterans. When she returned to her car, she found a rude, handwritten message taped to her windshield: “This parking is for veterans, lady. Learn to read and have some respect.” There’s just one problem: Hayes is a veteran. Hayes served as a physician in the United States Navy for eight years, but it seems that because she was dressed in business casual clothing, the note’s author decided that there was no way she could be a veteran and decided to tell her as much. She responded to her anonymous pen pal in the best possible way in a Facebook post on Monday, which is going viral. “I know I parked in one of the Veteran Parking spaces today, it was hot,” Hayes wrote. “The parking lot was full, so I just did it. It was the first time, and I won’t do it again.” “I’m sorry,” she continued. “I’m sorry that you can’t see my eight years of service in the United States Navy. I’m sorry that your narrow misogynistic world view can’t conceive of the fact that there are female veterans.”
Boner Candidate #3: AH, UGANDA
As we continue to mourn for Orlando, it’s important to not lose sight of homophobia’s status as a global problem. Offering some depressing perspective on that note is a story out of Uganda—which remains a horrific place for LGBT people and where homosexual activity is illegal— via KuchuTimes, “Africa’s first collective online radio, television and news platform focusing on LGBTI issues in Africa,” according to its Twitter. Reportedly, several students have been expelled from western Uganda’s boys-only Mbarara High School after being shamed and tortured by fellow students for being gay. Three injured students are reportedly in the hospital. Ugandan gay activist Frank Mugisha reported a version of the story on his Twitter yesterday. Last year, Mbarara High School copy-and-pasted a news report on its Facebook regarding the closing of Ntare School after two students were accused of being gay and a “rampage” by their fellow students ensued. “Teachers however, and other administrators came in time to save the two from being attacked. They also cautioned the students to keep the matter secret for the school’s reputation,” says the post. “This however did not go well with the student community, who on Tuesday night launched a violent strike after night studies.”
[polldaddy poll=9447522]
