Foot-In-Mouth Disease

It looks like Tracy Morgan really stepped in it. During a stand-up act, he went on an anti-gay and said he would stab his son for talking in a "gay voice." He went on to say, "I don't "f*cking care if I piss off some gays, because if they can take a f*cking d**k up their ass ... they can take a f*cking joke."Well congrats Tracy, because you pissed off some gays so mission: accomplished.

There were some in the audience that laughed at this, but I'm not really sure how threatening the life of any child, let alone your own child, for any reason is humourous. The statement, even without the gay angle, was completely out of order. The homophobic aspect just makes it so very much worse. This kind of language is extremely dangerous in a world where members of the LGBT community are constantly victims of violent acts up to and including murder. Morgan is fanning the flames with statements such as this and that must be addressed.

I know that there are people out there who are going to say he has the right to say what he said, and I agree with that. The thing is that everyone else also has the right to say that his speech was absolutely reprehensible, and utterly unacceptable. That is how freedom of speech works in this country. You can say whatever, but people can disagree with you and hold you accountable. Freedom of speech is a two-way street. Unfortunately for Morgan, he has an 18-wheeler headed right at him.

Now the inevitable question has come up: should Tracy Morgan be fired (from from his show "30 Rock")? Personally, I'm not sure one way or the other. Having said that, I definitely feel like his supposed "apology" (which, by the way, came a week after the actual incident occurred) leaves A LOT to be desired. Everything that I have seen, read, and heard leaves me to believe that he meant every hate-filled word he uttered that night. It is not just that his apology doesn't go far enough, it's that I don't even believe it to begin with. He has much to atone for. Remember when Michael Richards went on a racist rant some years ago? There is not much of a difference between that incident and this incident. This should be met with the exact same outrage.

Here is part of the statement issued by 30 Rock's executive producer Tina Fey: "I hope for his sake that Tracy's apology will be accepted as sincere by his gay and lesbian coworkers at "30 Rock", without whom Tracy would not have lines to say, clothes to wear, sets to stand on, scene partners to act with, or a printed-out paycheck from accounting to put in his pocket"