Douchebag of the Month

This is a little monthly feature dedicated to highlighting some of the people I despise. I have opted for "Douchebag" as the insult because it seems to be quite trendy at the moment; and according to what I read it is associated to a variety of negative personality characteristics ranging from arrogance to malice and to stupidity. I have also chosen to make this a monthly feature because there are just too many douchebags. If I allowed myself it might well be a thrice-daily feature.

I am happy to say our first winner scores high on all of the 3 douchebag traits listed above: Wolfgang Schussel, chancellor of Austria from 2000 to 2007.

 

Can you spot the difference?

Now he is the parliamentary leader of the OVP, the Conservative Party in Austria. What has earned him this coveted award of "Douchebag of the Month"? 

Well, right now the 2 parties in the currently governing coalition, the Conservative OVP and the social-democratic SPO, are discussing the introduction of gay civil unions. About time too, since Austria is now one of the few countries in Western Europe without that basic right for gay citizens. They have discarded the option of gay marriage, and now having discussions on what form the union would take. A significant portion of the Conservative party seemed ready to give way to the more liberal SPO and have a full-fledged civil union like there is in Germany or Switzerland.

Never fear -- enter DB Schussel at the head of the traditionalist wing of the OVP: they say they will support the civil unions, but that gay couples shouldn't be able to tie the knot at city hall like straight couples marrying civilly. Instead, they say, gay couples should pay a private lawyer to formalize their union, making it more akin to a commercial transaction than to a union between 2 human beings.

Now, I am not of those fanatic activists that shouts "Marriage or Nothing!" In fact, I am rather happy to have gay unions not called marriage, given the fact that as an institution marriage has had some unsavory aspects in the past. It used to serve to transmit women as property from father to husband, and so on. So, I am quite content with something that gives me all the rights of marriage without all the historical baggage and implications of the name.

However, I don't like being treated like a second-rate citizen and human being, and that is exactly what this measure by Schussel seeks to achieve. Besides the symbolism of having to slink off to a lawyer's office instead of being able tie the knot publicly in a government building as a citizen -- there is also the question of money: Thanks, but I don't really want to pay 5 times more to a lawyer to formalize my union than a hetero couple pays at city hall. 

There is something so petty and mendacious about this measure that I can't even put it into words. Why do the fuck do you care? What does it achieve, besides being one last bull-shit scented taunt at 4% of the population? I know Austria is a pretty well run country and has a good economy, but surely there must have been something else -- education, health care, immigrant integration, crime, environment, energy policy, picking out the toilet paper brand for use in the Parliament's bathrooms -- that would have been more vital to discuss for days in Parliament.

There is something nauseating about such pointless malevolence, especially when it disguises itself as a preoccupation with values.