The RSHD and his (very) small handful of supporters

I really wasn't going to harp on this subject all over again, but the things you find via Google...

A while ago, a certain individual who ran as a dark-horse candidate for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Presidency (yeah, this guy again) who's been previously labelled by some as the Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit (or RSHD, if you're trying to be polite to mixed company), mainly due to the fact that no one's really been able to prove otherwise. The latest controversy involved a Guest of Honor's speech by N. K. Jemisin at Continuum 9 that involved the subject of racism, but the RSHD's typical tunnel vision kicked in and he decided to post a genuinely repulsive screed merely because he was used as an unnamed (but nonetheless identifiable) example of same in the SF community. The irony is that his response completely proved Jemisin's point about him.

Now consider the following: the vast majority of people in this little subculture of ours who blog took serious umbrage at the RSHD's ham-handed tactics. It's one thing to post racist crap that personally attacked a fellow writer as subhuman; as sickening as that stuff was, if he had just restrained himself and posted it to one of his own blogs everyone would have just thought that the RSHD was acting out again and would've not paid much attention after that. The problem, however, was a bit more complicated than that, since he used the SFWAauthors Twitter Feed to spread the manure around. This was, and is, not particularly smart since there are rules against that sort of thing (Article IV, Section 10 of the SFWA bylaws, for one); as it is, there's a growing consensus in some quarters that the RSHD has to be tossed out of the SFWA on his ear. Except for the following people who should know better:

While googling the term "SFWA" a few days ago, I noticed that there was a handful of pros - both affiliated with the SFWA and not - who were strongly taking his side despite the fact that he seems to be everything his detractors make him out to be. I won't name names, because - let's face it - people make mistakes. Even professional writers. Those who remain this clueless on the subject of an incredibly nasty piece of work like the RSHD should feel embarassed. I mean, if this is the sort of guy you're going to waste energy defending, you just might come to regret it later on when you actually have a chance to think about it.

But hey, if any of those pros need more examples, there are plenty around. Oddly enough, quite a few correspond to the letters of the guy's new acronym:

Racism? Sure. The Jemisin controversy again, and this thing he wrote in 2005 called - wait for it - "The merits of anti-semitism", What a charming guy.

Sexism? Yep. His repulsive essay on how much he likes Taliban-style tactics in keeping women barefoot, pregnant and uneducated is a good example of same.

Homophobia? He hasn't really graduated beyond the level of fifth grade "you're a fag" taunting, but you've just gotta love it when he aims it at the candidate who beat him the last time he ran for SFWA President and it backfires so spectacularly.

Dipshit? Well, he's an anti-vaccine loon, to boot. And a creationist. And apparently not smart enough to avoid taking on Phil Plait on other subjects the RSHD apparently knows nothing about, either.

That being said, my question is this:

Why in the world would anyone - anyone - bother to defend this pathetic creep?

It can't be because of freedom of speech issues, because his freedom of speech wasn't affected in any way: he continues to post whatever the hell he feels like and shows no real signs of stopping. If it's because there's a strong contrarian streak in these authors, there are far better reasons to get your jollies by picking fights. If it's because of politics, they need to remember that any number of other very dumb people have decided that "libertarian" means "I can be a bigot and misusing the term 'libertarian' makes it perfectly okay".

The only other reason, unfortunately, is that some of the people who have taken up the mantle of supporting the RSHD are doing it for the worst reason of all: because they share at least some - if not all - of his prejudices. In that case, nothing I or anyone else can write is going to change that fact. It's just a damn shame if it's the truth.

(NOTE: There's a very simple reason why all of the above links direct to blogs and sites referencing the RSHD's output and not directly to the source material; I don't want to give his personal pile of Internet guano free publicity in terms of hits. Sure, you can go to his site directly if you so wished. Why would you want to, though?)