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You are here: Home / No One Ever Told Me That About Depeche Mode

No One Ever Told Me That About Depeche Mode

by John Cole|  January 20, 20113:10 pm| 52 Comments

This post is in: Assholes

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This will be amusing.

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Previous Post: « Rick Santorum Amazed that Black People are Pro-Choice
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Reader Interactions

52Comments

  1. 1.

    geg6

    January 20, 2011 at 3:13 pm

    OMG, OMG, OMG.

    You know, Breitfart always did set off my gaydar.

  2. 2.

    cyntax

    January 20, 2011 at 3:15 pm

    How come whenever conservatives speak about teh gayz, I always think “in the closet:”

    …I’m going to indulge in my all ’80s Depeche Mode, Cure, New Order fetish and we’re going to have a big ‘ol gay party at CPAC.

    Maybe Breitbart will have an epiphany of sorts at this party.

  3. 3.

    Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther

    January 20, 2011 at 3:15 pm

    I am not endorsing gay marriage, I’m not endorsing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I will be the harshest critic of the activist gay left, who I fear more than al-Qaida

    .

    Frankly, the man needs some serious help.

  4. 4.

    Culture of Truth

    January 20, 2011 at 3:17 pm

    Does this mean he’s having an al-Qaida party too?

  5. 5.

    cyntax

    January 20, 2011 at 3:17 pm

    @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:

    Talk about wanting to have persecute his cake and eat it too…

  6. 6.

    slag

    January 20, 2011 at 3:17 pm

    Depeche Mode turned everyone gay in the 80s? Or maybe it was just Breitbart? And are the pictures? Because if so, I really don’t want to see them.

  7. 7.

    Mark S.

    January 20, 2011 at 3:18 pm

    Breitbart always finds a way to be a douchebag:

    I will be the harshest critic of the activist gay left, who I fear more than al-Qaida.

    It was awful when those gay activists flew planes into the Twin Towers. Fucker.

  8. 8.

    morzer

    January 20, 2011 at 3:18 pm

    Sausage on a stick, Mr Breitbart?

  9. 9.

    Julia Grey

    January 20, 2011 at 3:18 pm

    I am not endorsing gay marriage, I’m not endorsing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

    Talk about trying to play both sides against the middle.

  10. 10.

    slag

    January 20, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    @Culture of Truth: I wonder what kind of music turns people Al Qaida.

  11. 11.

    TooManyJens

    January 20, 2011 at 3:22 pm

    @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: But he has a huge problem with telling gay people they’re not welcome in the big tent! I mean, of course they’re welcome, don’t be silly. They just shouldn’t try to get equal rights to get married or serve in the military, because that would make them worse than terrorists!

    This is a definition of “welcome” with which I was previously unfamiliar.

  12. 12.

    MikeJ

    January 20, 2011 at 3:23 pm

    @slag: Lee Greenwood seems to have done wonders on the American right.

  13. 13.

    Ash Can

    January 20, 2011 at 3:23 pm

    @Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: This. The first thing I thought of when I read that blockquote was, “This guy is fucked up.”

  14. 14.

    freelancer

    January 20, 2011 at 3:25 pm

    “Isn’t that the guy from Depeche Mode?”
    “Yeah.”
    “But he’s with a girl?!”
    “Oh yeah, that guy is totally straight, I saw a whole thing about him on the VH1.”
    “But he’s in DEPECHE MODE! Impossible!”

  15. 15.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 20, 2011 at 3:25 pm

    I will be the harshest critic of the activist gay left, who I fear more than al-Qaida.

    Sweet jumpin’ Jesus. But it is somewhat refreshing to hear one of them say it out loud. IT’s hard to quantify such things, but if you flipped a magic switch and made homophobia disappear from the American psyche, the Republican Party would be a much weaker force.

    As to Breitbart being a self-hating closet-case, didn’t he get his start working under Matt Drudge?

  16. 16.

    morzer

    January 20, 2011 at 3:27 pm

    I will be the harshest critic of the activist gay left, who I fear more than al-Qaida.

    After all, Al-Qaida only blow your limbs off and kill your friends, while gay people might kiss your son or daughter.

    Priorities, people.

  17. 17.

    Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther

    January 20, 2011 at 3:29 pm

    @cyntax: Indeed!

    “Bad cake! You are very bad, cake! No little grooms on top of you!”

  18. 18.

    MikeJ

    January 20, 2011 at 3:31 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    but if you flipped a magic switch and made homophobia disappear from the American psyche, the Republican Party would be a much weaker force.

    I’m not sure about that. I think they’d be stronger.

    They wouldn’t have to pander to the shrinking minority of gay haters and could appear more rational to middle of the road voters. “Gays” are a voting bloc that usually goes democratic because we (for the most part, usually) treat them like humans. If gay hatred disappeared the voting bloc would disappear. If it split evenly it would still be a drop from the current Dem favoring split.

  19. 19.

    jibeaux

    January 20, 2011 at 3:31 pm

    Does it seem to anyone else that a party consisting of Breitbart + openly gay doodz who hate gay marriage and want to keep DADT = a party consisting of Breitbart, which is, ipso facto and whatnot, not actually a party at all.

  20. 20.

    Rosalita

    January 20, 2011 at 3:31 pm

    Obviously I wasn’t the only one who had that quote about fearing leftist guys more than Al Qaida reach out and smack me to the floor. What a fuckity-fuck this guy is.

  21. 21.

    Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther

    January 20, 2011 at 3:32 pm

    @TooManyJens: He keeps using that word, but I don’t think he knows what it means.

    @Ash Can: And the thing is, I would love to have some compassion (honestly, I really would). But when you’re Breitbart, your problems tend not to stay within your own headspace but rather radiate out far and wide. Gay lives are devalued and America is lessened by this shit.

  22. 22.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    January 20, 2011 at 3:32 pm

    What is gay about Depeche Mode, The Cure and New Order? David Gahan has probably OD’d with more female groupies than any other frontman and Martin L. Gore was married to a model. Robert Smith has been married to his wife, Mary, since 1988. And Bernard Sumner is currently married to his second wife, Sarah.

    Even The Smiths and REM are only partially gay. Morrissey, yes, Johnny Marr, no. Michael Stipe, yes, rest of the band, no.

    Now if he was breaking out his Erasure and Pet Shop Boys albums…

  23. 23.

    morzer

    January 20, 2011 at 3:33 pm

    Incidentally, can we all send Breitbart mail and accuse him of “posing as a somdomite”? The man clearly longs to be the new Oscar Wilde, after all.

  24. 24.

    Mike in NC

    January 20, 2011 at 3:35 pm

    From the Buffalo Beast’s “50 Most Loathsome” list entry for Brietbart:

    His Drudge-inspired bullshit finally hit the fan in July when he posted an out of context video excerpt of USDA employee Shirley Sherrod that implied she was a racist. But like the implication of Brietbart’s hetero marriage, the truth of the matter was the exact opposite.

  25. 25.

    Calouste

    January 20, 2011 at 3:37 pm

    I won’t claim to be an expert, but I don’t think the Cure and New Order really classify as 80s gay music. Well, not compared to say Erasure, the Pet Shop Boys, Culture Club, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood for example. But maybe Breitbart thought that mentioning them would be a bit too obvious a clue.

  26. 26.

    harokin

    January 20, 2011 at 3:38 pm

    I don’t want to go Godwin, but I wonder if he thinks New Order chose its name as some sort of homage rather than as an ironic allusion following Joy Division.

    “Living a life that [he] can’t leave behind” indeed.

  27. 27.

    cyntax

    January 20, 2011 at 3:40 pm

    @morzer:

    The man clearly longs to be the new Oscar Wilde, after all.

    Aingonna happen. Wilde had more pithiness in a fingernail clipping than this cretin. To say nothing of actual talent, which is off the scale of comparison.

  28. 28.

    chopper

    January 20, 2011 at 3:47 pm

    @cyntax:

    now i’m imagining the guy trapped in a closet with a midget outside the door.

  29. 29.

    Bill Murray

    January 20, 2011 at 3:48 pm

    @cyntax: OTOH, he would be going to prison soon for gross indecency if he were to emulate Oscar Wilde

  30. 30.

    Wile E. Quixote

    January 20, 2011 at 3:48 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    As to Breitbart being a self-hating closet-case, didn’t he get his start working under Matt Drudge?

    He did describe himself as being “Matt Drudge’s bitch.” I wonder if that means that he he went around the offices of The Drudge Report shackled up like Maggie Gyllenhaal at the beginning of Secretary. Did Drudge bend him over a desk and spank him when he made typos? Does anyone else think it’s time for a remake of Secretary, but this time told from the viewpoint of a gay, submissive closeted conservative?

  31. 31.

    Calouste

    January 20, 2011 at 3:49 pm

    @morzer:

    If that means living the last part of his life in exile, shunned by society and in poverty, he can go ahead.

  32. 32.

    Culture of Truth

    January 20, 2011 at 3:49 pm

    I wonder what kind of music turns people Al Qaida.

    INXS

  33. 33.

    Flounder

    January 20, 2011 at 3:50 pm

    I’m posting this comment to make Balloon Juice work on my iPod.

  34. 34.

    New Yorker

    January 20, 2011 at 3:52 pm

    I will be the harshest critic of the activist gay left, who I fear more than al-Qaida.

    Is this an admission from the right that the threat from al Qaeda is largely overblown? I can’t imagine the planet one must inhabit to seriously be more scared of gays than of murderous jihadis.

    Also too, I’m scared of the following things more than the “gay left”: cockroaches, doberman pinschers, Adam Sandler, and Ke$ha.

  35. 35.

    Wile E. Quixote

    January 20, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    @J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:

    Now if he was breaking out his Erasure and Pet Shop Boys albums…

    Hey now! I will have you know that there were thousands of straight men at the Pet Shop Boys concerts in Seattle in 2006 and 2009. I know because I was one of them. And for the record I’d like to state that even though my date for those concerts was gay, I’m not.

  36. 36.

    Wile E. Quixote

    January 20, 2011 at 3:58 pm

    @jibeaux:

    Does it seem to anyone else that a party consisting of Breitbart + openly gay doodz who hate gay marriage and want to keep DADT = a party consisting of Breitbart, which is, ipso facto and whatnot, not actually a party at all.

    It seems to me like a party with Breitbart, any party with Breitbart, is like that old saying about the fine wine and the horse turds. You know, the one that goes “What do you get if you pour a bottle of fine wine into a barrel full of horse turds? A barrel full of horse turds. What do you get if you drop a horse turd into a barrel of fine wine? A barrel full of horse turds.”
    <p

  37. 37.

    cleek

    January 20, 2011 at 4:06 pm

    @Calouste:
    the Cure wasn’t “gay” music. they were just a band that jocks didn’t like. and what jocks don’t like is “gay” but not gay.

  38. 38.

    jibeaux

    January 20, 2011 at 4:06 pm

    @Wile E. Quixote:
    Touche’. Consider the equation to have massively self-destructed in a ball of illogic upon reaching the first “Breitbart”.

  39. 39.

    Jay S

    January 20, 2011 at 4:14 pm

    @jibeaux:

    Does it seem to anyone else that a party consisting of Breitbart … is, ipso facto and whatnot, not actually a party at all.

    Breitbart, party of one!

    ETA punctuation.

  40. 40.

    Culture of Truth

    January 20, 2011 at 4:16 pm

    Breitbart is a disco party and a disco party don’t stop

  41. 41.

    burnspbesq

    January 20, 2011 at 4:38 pm

    @slag:

    “Depeche Mode turned everyone gay in the 80s?”

    I thought it was Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

  42. 42.

    morzer

    January 20, 2011 at 4:50 pm

    Presumably Breitbart will wear a HAZMAT tuxedo to express his brotherhood with teh gay? Heaven only knows what they’ll wear to express their views of him.

  43. 43.

    Pooh

    January 20, 2011 at 4:52 pm

    @slag: Ke$ha

  44. 44.

    El Cid

    January 20, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    Since there doesn’t seem to be another thread more appropriate…

    Another isolated incident, once which our Stalin government uses to rob an American of their omnipresent 2nd Amendment Rights:

    Police Seize ‘Large Amount’ Of Weapons From Blogger Who Praised Gifffords Shooting: ‘1 Down And 534 To Go’
    __
    Police in Arlington, MA this week seized a “large amount” of weapons and ammunition from local businessman Travis Corcoran after he wrote a blog post threatening U.S. lawmakers in the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ).
    __
    In a post on his blog (which has since been removed) titled “1 down and 534 to go” — 1 referring to Giffords and 534 referring to the rest of the House of Representatives and the Senate — Corcoran applauded the shooting of Giffords and justified the assassination of lawmakers because he argued the federal government has grown far beyond its constitutional limits. “It is absolutely, absolutely unacceptable to shoot indiscriminately. Target only politicians and their staff and leave regular citizens alone,” he wrote in the post.
    __
    “We certainly take this as a credible threat,” Arlington police Captain Robert Bongiorno told reporters, adding that “multiple federal law enforcement agencies” were involved. Authorities also suspended Corcoran’s gun license, though he is currently not facing any charges.
    __
    Corcoran calls himself “an anarcho-capitalist” and while his blog has been taken down, based on his Twitter page, he appears to hold views similar to those of many in the anti-government libertarian wing of the conservative movement, like many tea party activists. Anarcho-capitalism is a radical subset of libertarianism, and is often referred to as “libertarian-anarchy.” For example, echoing calls from many on the right, Corcoran tweeted, “it is unconstitutional for the Feds to even run a department of education.”
    __
    In a Twitter exchange with reporter Laura Leslie, Corcoran lays out a conventional anti-government philosophy, and explains in depth why he views assassination as legitimate…

    This guy is totally a liberal plant. Entirely according to Alinsky’s and Frances Fox Pivens’ plans.

    And anyway, he was trying to help protect innocent people by urging assassins to target only politicians and their staff, and not shoot indiscriminately at family members or bystanders and the like.

    At least, not unless totally necessary. For freedom.

    The Founding Fathers completely supported assassinating elected officials in the opposition. It may not be written down anywhere, but it has to be true.

  45. 45.

    Maude

    January 20, 2011 at 5:30 pm

    @El Cid:
    OMG. Thanks for posting this. It is indeed scary these days.
    Is it me or did it used to be harder to build up a weapons cache in the US?. I know we’ve always had anarchists, but now it seems that there are more.

  46. 46.

    Royston Vasey

    January 20, 2011 at 5:38 pm

    Holy fuck! Depeche Mode, The Cure, and New Order are teh ghey??!
    Some of the best British music around. Heck, Depeche Mode are still going strong.

    Maybe Andrew could of thrown in The Communards, Bronski Beat and Erasure, with maybe a litle FGTH (Relax! Don’t do it! – an anthem to teh ghey se><or).

    Or is it really that Andrew thinks all Brit music is just gay?

    Harummph!

  47. 47.

    piratedan

    January 20, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    perhaps it was a matter of seeing Boy George once and reading about George Michael a decade or so later and connecting the dots of the pro-gay rhetoric that is everywhere these days possibly influencing those that were susceptable to its message?

  48. 48.

    Yuppers

    January 20, 2011 at 6:23 pm

    @J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:

    Um. Erasure is only 50%, as well.

  49. 49.

    Rihilism

    January 20, 2011 at 8:15 pm

    Absurd!!!!!

    Not Breiborg’s band list, but some commenters’ conflation of gay band members with “gay” pop. Individual band members do not have to be gay in order for a band to be “in” within the gay community. Is Aretha Franklin gay? Is Barbara Streisand gay? Is Scissor Sisters gay?… Well, yes, some bands are gay and have a gay (and straight) following, but the point still stands.

    Remember, people, this was the 80’s. Hell, even Boy George was in the closet! George Michael? Straight, as far as the straights were concerned. Village People? “You can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal,
    You can do whatever you feel”? I mean come on! How many straight people went gaga over the VP, safe in the knowledge that the “band” members could not possibly be referring to anything beyond the virtues of the Young Men’s Christian Association?

    What “made” a band “gay” in the 80’s (other than the long-haired metal bands which were “gay” in their own way) was three things: the songs had a good beat and you could dance to them (often this was a stand alone criteria); the band had an outsider/nonconformist image and wrote lyrics that appealed to outsiders/nonconformists; the bands were “discovered” and adopted by the gay community.

    Depeche Mode, gay? Yes. The Cure, gay? Yes. New Order? Well, they were kind of a “frat” band, but then again, so was REM (ergo, New Order and REM were gay). The fact that many straights enjoyed (still enjoy) these bands or the fact that their lyrics may not have been explicitly “gay” did not diminish their appeal in the 80’s gay culture. Quite the contrary. With few or no openly “gay” bands (or at least few with any commercial success) and a closeted culture, bands such as these were adopted by the gay community and as everyone one knows, gay adoption leads to gay children…

  50. 50.

    SBJules

    January 20, 2011 at 10:18 pm

    My old Honda was stolen once and when I got it back, there was a depeche mode tape (yes tape) in it. I tossed it figuring it was bad karma to keep it.

  51. 51.

    Anne Laurie

    January 20, 2011 at 10:27 pm

    @TooManyJens:

    I mean, of course they’re welcome, don’t be silly. They just shouldn’t try to get equal rights to get married or serve in the military, because that would make them worse than terrorists!
    __
    This is a definition of “welcome” with which I was previously unfamiliar.

    Fibber. You’ve been a woman for more than three days, so you’ve certainly been exposed to the “I’m okay with feminism, but — “ flaplip.

    If only denialism could be captured as an energy source, we could cut Saudi Arabia loose forever. Of course, it’d be just as toxic an environment, but at least the trees would appreciate it!

  52. 52.

    morzer

    January 20, 2011 at 10:28 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    Is flaplip the new cudlip?

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