Whorper Collins Watch

Harper Collins' chief marketer, Jonathan Burnham, hired a fanatical homophobe, Lynn Vincent, to write Sarah Palin's book for her. Jonathan Burnham - wait for it - is an openly gay man. Here's Vincent's piece hailing the attempt to reverse marriage rights for gay couples in California. Money quote:

The 14th Amendment equal-protection argument in favor of gay marriage already is trampling First Amendment rights to religious exercise and free speech.

In March 2006, for example, the 103-year-old adoption division of Boston Catholic Charities (BCC) decided to close its doors rather than comply with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' requirement that it place children with homosexual couples. Five months later, the group's San Francisco branch followed suit. Both moves were direct outgrowths of the legalization of gay marriage and domestic partnerships in Massachusetts and California.

Politico quotes Burnham's author thus:

"In decades past, men and women routinely brushed off fleeting thoughts of homosexual behavior. Now, though, gay activists have succeeded in planting a seed that says people not only can but should follow such thoughts with exploration and action," Vincent warned last year.

Her former co-author, Robert Stacy McCain, as Dish readers will know, is one of the most hateful homophobes in the blogosphere.

The Palin book, moreover, is clearly being styled as a work of polemic, appealing to the Christianist base, thereby fanning homophobia, and empowering those who would like nothing more than to push gay people back into the closet, out of marriage, out of the military, and out of the workplace. Burnham is now directly party to this effort.

It's not possible to accuse Jonathan Burnham of hypocrisy because that would imply he has any convictions or principles at all. Here, for example, is his quote about a 400-page book written in two months:

“Governor Palin has been unbelievably conscientious and hands-on at every stage, investing herself deeply and passionately in this project…. It’s her words...”

Hey, if it makes a buck, and advances his career, Burnham will do it. As gay people prepare to march for their civil rights, Burnham, one of the more powerful gay men in New York, is preparing to capitalize on their avowed enemies. It's just money, after all. And buzz. Always buzz.

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