Tuesday, December 22, 2009

My last word on Keillor

I'm going to be a bit of a contrarian for a moment, if I may. Now that I have had time to consider it more, I've come to a conclusion regarding Garrison Keillor's recent controversial essay on Silent Night: He's kidding.

Had we heard this essay read in his usual dry and droll manner, I think the satire would have been more readily apparent. I don't think it is good satire or it wouldn't have been so easy to take seriously. Everything I have read and heard from Keillor leads me to believe that he is not an anti-Semite who hates "White Christmas" and is totally ignorant of the pagan origins of many Christmas traditions. That seemed strange to me the first time I read his article and it makes less and less sense the more I think about it. Does anyone really think he is that stupid?

Keillor and I disagree on gay marriage and probably other things as well, but I have never believed he was so ill-informed. The next thing you know he will probably be quoted as saying Unitarians can't take a joke.

3 comments:

  1. I've gone back and forth on this, and I've come to the conclusion that, no he wasn't kidding. And not only that, but also his regular jibes at UUs are a lot less funny than I thought they were.

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  2. Nor do I think he's kidding. Here's audio of a skit from PHC just last weekend;

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlYOecLZmhI

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  3. Do you think he's kidding when he says that gays shouldn't get married or adopt children?

    Admittedly, he said he was kidding about that when people called him on it, some of his best friends are gay, yadda yadda, but I'm frankly a little skeptical that he actually thought that was funny.

    I don't.

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