"Last Sunday, homosexuals paraded around naked in the streets of San Francisco at the annual Folsom Street Fair. There were no arrests. They did more than walk the streets nude -- they beat each other with whips. The leather/fetish homosexuals led each other around like dogs with metal collars; they set up booths where visitors could get flogged; they sold hard-core pornography; they promoted BDSM (bondage, domination, sadism and masochism); they mutilated their bodies with metal spikes. And after promoting lethal sex acts -- the kind that causes AIDS -- they raised money for AIDS." -- Bill Donahue, head of the Catholic League

I don't ordinarily argue with crazy people. In fact, I try not to argue with regular people. It's not like they're suddenly going to say, "Oh, you're right! I appreciate your taking the time to straighten me out and return me to the path of rational thinking." No, they begrudgingly admit you're right only after all other options are dashed, and even then they call you an asshole under their breath.

Crazy people, though, don't even address the issue. They just repeat themselves, over and over, and when they get tired of that they ladle another heaping mess of craziness on top.

I know some of us want America to return to its role as a great nation, and I'm thinking I've got a good idea towards that end. We've got a national Do Not Call list that protects us from telemarketers; we could also use a national Crazy list that'd free us from arguing with totally irrational fools.

It'd be pretty easy to prove Bill Donahue is crazy just from the paragraph above. First, he says they were "promoting lethal sex acts" at the Folsom Street Fair. I didn't go to that particular event, but I'm pretty sure they weren't chanting, "Let's all buttfuck without a condom NOW!" I'm thinking they didn't give away a free goldfish if you could ejaculate into a dude named Stan.

Mr. Donahue seems oblivious to Catholic history when it comes to whipping and flogging, unless he can explain why it turns a guy in San Francisco into a pervert when it turns a guy in a monastery into a saint. Saint Jose Maria Escriva mutilated his body with metal spikes: he wore a chain of barbed prongs to, uh, further the glory of God. Saint Francis De Sales wore an iron belt and hair-shirts to torture himself, in between bouts of self-flagellation. Why is BDSM devout when it takes place in a monastery but profane when a loudspeaker is playing Kylie nearby?

"Okay, Donahue is a moron," you'll concede, "but crazy?" No, there is hard evidence of that.

Nudity is legal in San Francisco. Wearing dog collars and whipping consenting adults is legal in San Francisco. So why does he say, "There were no arrests"? Nobody did anything illegal. The statements are totally unrelated, which is the mark of insanity. It's like saying, "I went to the park today and flew a kite. There was no chicken salad." Or "I saw my landlord on the street today. The groundhog is neither ground nor a hog."

But there is no national Crazy list, so our logic goes unaddressed and then disappears under tomorrow's pile of bullshit. Which makes me wonder: if we repeatedly waste our time arguing with nuts, doesn't that make us nuts too?

On an unrelated note, I hear Bill Donahue went to church on Sunday. Grown men paraded around in their robes while telling nervous little boys what to do. Organs were played while in a darkened corner of the parish guilty-looking people ducked into a small booth where a priest was lurking. Nearby, people listening closely could hear talk of the most vile sorts of sins.

Astonishingly, there were no arrests. There's nothing like a pretzel, am I right?