Francis Beckwith, notorious and sleazy shill for "Intelligent Design" creationism, has now come to the defense of discrimination against gay men and women (as a commenter on our earlier thread pointed out). Do read the whole thing. He invokes the canard about "discrimination" against religious universities (discussed earlier), and misrepresents the petition, which calls for the APA to either abide by its own anti-discrimination policy (which includes sexual orientation) or abandon it. (He also got called out in the comments section for lying about the hiring practices of some religious institutions, but that's another matter.)
Meanwhile, in the comments, Professor Beckwith explains that opposition to discrimination against gay men and women can be "blamed" on the PGR and the fact that this blog reports news about faculty hires:
This, by the way, is what happens when a profession, once dedicated to the pursuit of wisdom, gets hijacked by those who treat its membership and its departments as so many stories on an academic Entertainment Tonight. The Philosophers' Gourmet could use a dash of hemlock, if you can find its mouth.
I'll assume that this isn't actually a proposal that I commit suicide or be murdered. But then what does it mean?
UPDATE: It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry when someone with Beckwith's track record of underhanded conduct (follow the links above) lectures others about character. He, of course, omits the links to the evidence in support of my claim about his notoriety and his sleaziness, and for obvious reasons. (And I won't even go into the other evidence of Beckwith's petty vindictiveness that's come to my attention over the years, ever since I first wrote about his creationism crusade.) If, as he claims, he's given up lying about science and trying to wreck science education in the public schools, I'm delighted. The fact remains that he was a Fellow of the Discovery [sic] Institute for a long time and for a good reason, as anyone familiar with his work knows. Indeed, I first heard of him when he appeared on Texas public radio doing exactly what I said: shilling for Intelligent Design during State Board of Education hearings about biology textbooks.
What a tiresome display.
A FINAL ADDENDUM (FEBRUARY 27): A couple of readers have now pointed out that in comments at the link, above, Steve Burton, with whom I attended grad school at Michigan twenty years ago, surfaces to vent his bile and resentment towards me, as he has done on more than one occasion in the blog era. (Burton is a regular contributor to Beckwith's "bizarro world" of a blog [to borrow Professor Norcross's appellation].) In order to bolster the credibility of his lies, he makes the remarkable claim to have been my "best friend" in grad school; since he knows my best friends in grad school, folks I am still friendly with now, I'm not sure whether this is just a rhetorical ploy or sad delusion on his part. (And what's next? Someone will surface who says, "I went to junior high school with Brian, and I'll tell you what he said then....") I liked Steve, and used to consider him a friend, though even in grad school, he was a nasty piece of work, but his acerbic wit was entertaining. But he was smart and interested in Nietzsche and fun to talk with. His politics were a bit peculiar even then, but I never dreamed that someone who has been an openly gay man his entire adult life would, twenty years later, be reduced to smearing his former friends on a blog apparently full of right-wing Christian bigots who loathe his sexuality. Steve says he's changed, and in one sense he has: he's nastier now than he was then. The whole spectacle is sad.
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