And sometimes, you just have to say, "Fuck civility."

Back here, I made a genuine effort to suggest that maybe, just maybe, it might be useful to take a deep breath and try to actually engage in some civil discourse. And while I was serious, I think it's also fair to point out that, with some people, anything resembling civility would be an utter waste of time because said people are, quite simply, well, retarded assholes.

Meet Aaron Unruh. Or "Spanky" as we call him around here.

Spanky already has quite the reputation as a ladies' man, what with his amusing perspective on female genital mutilation and race relations. But that's not why we're here. No, we're here to demonstrate why trying to engage Spanky in intellectual conversation would be a monstrous waste of time and oxygen. And, trust me, it won't be hard.

Once again (as we did earlier today), let's take a look at Spanky's post from this morning, reproduced in its entirety:

Gay Marriage: Hazardous to your Health

According to the Cameron research, married gays and lesbians lived 24 fewer years than their conventionally married counterparts. In Denmark, the country with the longest history of gay marriage, for 1990-2002, married heterosexual men died at a median age of 74 while the 561 partnered gays died at an average age of 51.

Stop right there.

Let us not start Googling, or following links, or checking credentials, or anything of the sort. No, let's just look at that claim, and wonder how anyone could believe that gay marriage alone is capable of knocking 24 years off of your life expectancy.

Because that's what Spanky is suggesting here. Look at that title: " Gay Marriage: Hazardous to your Health." And look at the relevant text: "According to the Cameron research, married gays and lesbians lived 24 fewer years than their conventionally married counterparts." So this is what Spanky is seriously suggesting -- that gay marriage will kill you 24 years ahead of your time.

How many of you believe that? How many of you consider that even remotely possible? Because that claim is simply, totally and utterly absurd on its face. There is nothing that a sane person could come up with that would even theoretically support such a lame-brained idea. So one does not need to dig into the research and methodology to realize that something really is rotten in Denmark, and that Spanky's claim is pure crap. But don't worry, we're not stopping here. We're just getting started.

So, having demonstrated that Spanky is clearly an ignorant buffoon for taking such an obviously bogus claim seriously, let us (as we did earlier today) show how his title doesn't even match the text of the article. Consider again the relevant text:

In Denmark, the country with the longest history of gay marriage, for 1990-2002, married heterosexual men died at a median age of 74 while the 561 partnered gays died at an average age of 51.

Note (as I pointed out before) how that is not even comparing married gays to unmarried gays, precisely what you would need to do to justify Spanky's dumbass title. Rather, it's comparing married gays to married straights, proving that Spanky doesn't understand even the most basic properties of statistical methodology, particularly the concept of dependent versus independent variables, a point we shall return to when it can do the most damage. But wait -- it's just getting better.

Note how Spanky doesn't even provide a link to the original post. When you're making an astonishing claim like that one, one would think it's only a matter of courtesy to give your readers a URL, so they can see you're not full of shit. It's almost as if Spanky didn't want you to be able to follow up and, as it turns out, for good reason. Because, as I already explained back here, Dr. Paul Cameron is a lying, Bible-banging hack who's well known for making shit up, which means that, in the end, Spanky's got nothing. But that's not the best part, oh, no.

Because, you see, the real test is to see how Spanky reacts when he's called on his dishonest bullshit, and it's not a pretty sight. Having been bitch-slapped from one end of the room to the other by various commenters (none of which was me, I should point out), Spanky's snappy, little wingnut retort consists of (verbatim):

Man, do I reel them in or what?

Funny how ideologues suddenly become experts in research methodology when an article at planetout.com tells them they can be.

Why, yes, it's your standard, right-wing, douchebag response: "Hey, thanks for the links!" This is apparently what passes for witty banter in the Dumbass-o-sphere, but it's that second sentence that's so screamingly funny. Apparently, the junior high school concept of dependent versus independent variables is, to Spanky, the mark of "expertise" in research methodology. Yeah, those 12-year-olds doing their experiments with all their high-falutin' words must just impress the shit out of Spanky, 'cuz they know what a "variable" is, and he doesn't. Jesus, but is it even possible to be stupider than that and still have a blog?

In the end, I'm still willing to be civil, but there are some folks who just don't qualify as contestants. And Spanky's one of them. Being a moron is bad enough. But being a moron, then trying to hide that under a veneer of infantile snark? That's truly unforgivable.