We all know that Joe the Plumber removed any doubt of how loathsome a man he is when he crassly told the victims of the Santa Barbara shooting that their kids' deaths didn't trump his right to carry a gun. But what does it say about the man who published that letter, Matt Barber? For those who don't know, Barber is a law professor at Liberty University who is also the number-three man with the Falwell empire's law firm, Liberty Counsel. He recently started the right-wing news site BarbWire as a sideline.
Like any Christianist, Barber has the right to be wrong. But is it too much to ask him to exercise some semblance of decency? Apparently it is, if he thought it appropriate to publish an article that essentially told the parents who had their kids shot to pieces just two days before, "Sorry your kids died, but don't you lecture me about what kind of gun I can have." In essence, Barber aided and abetted giving the finger to people whose wounds were still very raw.
We already knew Barber's standards weren't that high to begin with. After all, we're talking about a guy who was caught red-handed editing AP headlines to suit its Christianist agaenda. And before then, his two employers, Liberty Law and Liberty Counsel, helped Lisa Miller flout a court order to let her former lesbian partner, Janet Jenkins, have visitation with their daughter Isabella. They didn't stop there--they also helped Miller flee to Nicaragua with Isabella. Even in the face of that, I thought that Barber would have at least SOME standards. Apparently I was wrong.
Joe the Plumber's been kicked up, down and sideways for his open letter, and deserves every bit of it. But I think Barber deserves to be called out as well. Let him have it on Facebook, and demand that he apologize to the victims and their families.