If you haven’t already thrown up your breakfast yet—gurl, what is wrong with you?—prepare for evacuation because Ruben “drag queen” Diaz is back the (ob)scene.
Tony Varona from Pam’s House Blend did everyone the courtesy of translating Diaz’s recent interview with NY1 Noticias’ Pura Politica, a political talk show on the Spanish channel. And while Diaz’s horrid talking points will make you wanna move your trashcan nearby, the interviewer’s constant challenges will make you wanna treat yourself to an extra helping of celebratory pancakes.
Here’s the part where the interviewer, Juan Manuel Benitez grills Diaz on his claim that marriage equality will imperil churches:
Benitez: This legislation does not affect your church. It is a civil issue. Why are you still opposed?
Sen. Diaz: That is not the case.
Benitez: Someone will force you to [solemnize same-sex marriages]?
Sen. Diaz: Yes. According to the bill as written, and in the future, yes. Churches will be forced.
Benitez: That is not true. Let us talk about facts. We are talking about civil marriage. No one will go to your church to have you marry them.
Sen. Diaz: Marriage is marriage.Benitez: Civil marriage.
Sen. Diaz: Marriage is marriage. And the bill as written… the bill does not exclude… as it is written specifically… does not exclude either churches or ministers specifically. It does not say it in the bill.
Benitez: The bill refers only to civil marriage, never to religious marriage.
Sen. Diaz: Marriage refers only to marriage between man and woman.
Benitez: The bill refers only to civil marriage, not religious marriage. Do you really think same-sex couples would go to your church to get married… to have you marry them?
Sen. Diaz: Well, who knows? They would come to my church so that I would refuse to marry them, and so that they could sue me, and mount a discrimination case. To mount a case in favor of stripping my church of taxes [tax exempt status], just because I would not marry them. […]
Benitez: I don’t know if you have read the bill, but the bill specifically excludes churches and deals only with civil marriage, which is performed by civil authorities. It deals with civil marriage and not religious marriage.
Sen. Diaz: One of the other senators just said that he would prefer if they would include – so that specifically it would be clear – that it would not force ministers and churches…
Benitez: And if the bill included that more specific language – that the churches would be excluded and there would be no problem with discrimination by churches – would that mean that you would vote in favor of civil marriage equality?
Sen. Diaz: For me, no, I would vote no because […]it is against nature… and it just should not exist.
So first Diaz is against it because we’ll sue churches. But as soon as that’s not an issue, he’s against government-sanctioned, civil unions because granting licenses to committed couples is unnatural. Mmkay.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Here’s the part where Diaz claims that if a child dared to pray or read a bible in school that he would be thrown out (those schools in the Bronx must be pretty tough):
Benitez: Everyone is free, as you say, but you are denying the liberty of gay people to marry those whom they love.
Sen. Diaz: No, no I cannot pray in a school. I cannot read the word of God in a school. The teacher would throw me out. So there is no liberty. […] We are the ones who are being persecuted, and that Christians are persecuted. And that the Christian religion is persecuted when we cannot do the things that we want to do. We accept that. That’s fine. But don’t hate us. So don’t permit us to do those things… but why is it that these people… when one gets on something… oh ‘Hate!’
Benitez: So you are saying that that is not homophobia. That you are not a homophobe?
Sen. Diaz: Hate is what they do to me! With the threats they send me…
Benitez: So you do not accept the label of homophobe? You are not a homophobe?
Sen. Diaz: How can that be? How could that be? When I have relatives…
Make a note of that, people: it is impossible to be homophobic if you have any gay relatives—even a lesbian third cousin twice removed. Seeing as most families have at least one gay relative that makes approximately 100% of the US population NOT homophobic. Hooray! Equality achieved! Thank you Ruby Dee!
Lastly, here’s the part where Diaz completely sidesteps a question about historical equality movements to say, “How DARE Mayor Bloomberg compare gays to black and fat people! You have no idea how horribly oppressed fat people have been!!!”
Benitez: Senator, are you not concerned that in 10, 20, 30 years, when there are documentaries made on this subject – a subject that is now unstoppable with more and more nations and states recognizing same-sex marriage – that you will appear like those politicians in documentaries on the 1950s and 1960s who opposed civil rights? That you will appear to be like one of those [obstructionist] politicians in the history books?
Sen. Diaz: Firstly, Mayor Bloomberg and the people who dare to compare the suffering, the slavery, forcible deportations, the assaults suffered by the African-American community, from Africa – like they sold our relatives, brought them in ships, chained them together, sold them as slaves. People like Mayor Bloomberg who dare to compare all of that to the homosexual lifestyle disrespect and abuse the African-American community. The African-American community must not allow our suffering and past slavery to be used as a comparison to homosexual conduct. […] Second, the states that have civil [same-sex] marriage do not have it because the people have opted for it. In every state where the people have been given the right to vote [on marriage equality], including California, the people have rejected it. So what is it that happens? Well, there are millionaires like Bloomberg, who take their bundle of money and buy votes, leading the legislatures to impose same-sex marriage on the public.
Benitez: The end of legal racial segregation also was not put up to public vote. Those laws were federal dictates and orders direct from the presidency.
Sen. Diaz: Jews do not allow anyone to compare their suffering…
Benitez: But you will recognize that the gay community has had its own suffering…
Sen. Diaz: Like we Hispanics have suffered? Like Puerto Ricans have suffered? Like fat people have suffered? … In this world discrimination is massive. We Hispanics, we Puerto Ricans when we came to this country… and we still have it… but to compare that to Black slavery is disrespectful to the Black community.
You’re fooling yourself if you think that Diaz gives a flying fuck about sizeism (and if he does, it only because he’s getting hefty in his older age). No, he’s just glomming onto any group that might get outraged at having their struggles compared to AIDS-spreading, child-corrupting, anti-religious faggots.
The translator Mr. Varona suggests you read the entire interview just to hear Diaz squirm under Benitez’s excellent questioning:
Time and again I have seen how bilingual and bicultural politicians, religious leaders and other public figures make outrageously defamatory and inaccurate statements against the LGBT community in Spanish media that they would never get away with making in English-language broadcast and print interviews. Much of the time, the interviewer allows them to make whatever outlandish and homophobic or transphobic claims about us without any follow-up questions or challenge of any sort. Not so with Juan Manuel Benitez’s 21-minute interview of Sen. Diaz.
As a regular consumer of bilingual media, we wonder why Mr. Varona thinks that such homophobia gets a free pass in Spanish media Is it the cultural and religious influence or something else?
misael
I love Juan Manuel Benitez. Love, Love, Love!!!!!!
ChrisC
I really could have done without the picture of that dude vomiting. But that’s just me, lol.
ashton cruz
Well at least he’s wearing a sassy cowboy hat.
bob
Anyone who says ‘it just shouldn’t exist’ is delusional. As in, psychotic. And the whole tax-exempt thing? Pure paranoia.
So, we’ve got a psychotic paranoid in Albany. But, somehow, people feel he properly represents them.
Food for thought…
ewe
Diaz should be removed from office. He is incapable of serving his constituency because his religious beliefs conflict with civic duty.
ewe
Nothing more hypocritical than a black man ranting on and on about “they they they.” He is a self serving bigot.
Mr. Enemabag Jones
If every “journalist” in America had the balls that Mr. Benitez has, America would be a better place today.
Danny
When he talks about slavery, he glaringly leaves out that black people captured and sold other black people into slavery. Plenty of black people made money off selling fellow black people into bondage.
QueerActivist
I think the proper spelling of the Pam’s House Blend guest blogger’s name is Tony Varona, not Verona.
DarSco
First, nothing compares to being a black man, if you are white, gay man you still have the upper hand lol
Churches should be exempt from performing gay marriages IF they are NOT taking taxpayers dollars. The last time i checked gay people paid taxes too lol. He needs to be real and say i have to cater to my twisted so called believers in G-D who created all of us. Start urging the sisters & brothers in the church to stop making babies w/o being married. According to the bible sex for PLEASURE is a sin, sex is only supposed to be for procreation, and i dont recall reading about Adam & Eve’s wedding. Marriage is created by man not G-D.
I’ll stop complaining about how blacks are treated when Jewish people stop complaining about the holocaust. The 1st jew who STOPS talking about the holocaust needs his BEHIND KICKED lol.
when you are black a lot of people prejudge you. More so if you are a black man. so stop saying blacks need to forget about racism. we were still mistreated 20 years after the holocaust. No 1 should ever forget about the holocaust nothing can be compared to it and no 1 should forget about the racist past of america.
Sen. Diaz is looking like one of the village people with hat on, werk it Miss senator diaz LOL
Ogre Magi
I would bet my eye teeth that that old goat Diaz has had an extramarital affair or two. We need to get the dirt on him pronto!
plaintom
If all journalists were as prepared and professional as Mr.Benitez this debate would have been over long ago.
Jenny
@Danny:
Stop playing that old racist canard about slavery being OK because a few Africans helped the European slavers. A few Jews helped the Nazis and got special treatment. Does that excuse the Nazis of being butchers? Hell no! There are gay men who happily sell out the LGBT community for political and financial success. Does that excuse society for being homophobic?
White Europeans & Americans were the ones who enslaved Africans throughout the Americas. They were the ones who murdered, raped, and split apart families for centuries.
Diaz is a bigot and so are you.
rajatv.tk
i apprayshat your waibsait manay people banatfutt your waibsait.
rajatv.tk
but i like you your waibsait
Queer Supremacist
@Jenny: At no time did he justify slavery. He simply pointed out a historical fact. Meanwhile, who freed the enslaved Africans?
A) White Europeans and Americans
B) The Chinese
C) Eskimos
D) Muppets
They didn’t even like black people, yet they were willing to fight a Civil War to set them free. We can’t even get equality through peaceful means from our so-called allies!
You throw around the r-word like a Klansman throws around the n-word.
tjr101
@Queer Supremacist: So Africans owe White Europeans and Americans for ending slavery??? Yeah just like gays owe the straights for us eventually achieving equal rights, what a dumbass post!
Joe Johnson
Tony Varona is a GLAAD board member. Pam’s House Blend just posted his work
gregger
We really need to get down to the point that when any politician starts their Christo-fascist garbage they get removed from office. If a Muslim or a Jew pulled any of this garbage they would be marginalized if not embarrassed into resigning. WTF are we allowing thieving bigots from the outer-boroughs to dictate what now over 56% of the states voters want? FTS!!!
I don’t give a RAT’S A$$ what color or religion anyone is
A bigot is a bigot, is a bigot, and the less than honorable being from the Bronx is a filthy BIGOT!!
gregger
@Queer Supremacist: Dude, check your facts.
France initially supplied help to the Confederacy, as did Britain and the German states (even though slavery was illegal in these areas).
The main abolitionists in the US were groups of Quakers and Moravians, religious figures like Henry Ward Beecher (father of Harriet Beecher Stowe) among others, and escaped slaves (Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas)
The Northern States had abolished slavery, for the most part, before the start of the war of 1812. This was purely on economic feasibility
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h477.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism
http://www.wright.edu/~christopher.oldstone-moore/abolitionUS.htm
Queer Supremacist
@tjr101 and @gregger: False equivalence. We owe so-called “straights” nothing. Every gay rights victory was achieved because of GAY PEOPLE and GAY PEOPLE ONLY. The breeders just follow us if they know what’s good for them. True, Tubman and Douglass escaped slavery and fought to end it. And blacks did fight in the Civil War on BOTH SIDES (there were black Confederate soldiers towards the end of the war). But “White Europeans and Americans” did do their part. Both whites and blacks deserve credit for the abolitionist movement. The difference is that blacks’ political rights were restricted.
Britain did not help the Confederacy as it would have meant war with the US. They and France were officially neutral (in spite of some French businesses who favored them), and Germany was not even unified until 1871 (individually, most of the German states were too small to get involved, and most Prussians favored the Union).
I checked my facts.