Chris Kelly Opinion: Bolus kicks off Pride Month with foot in mouth

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4 hours ago

I gave up on Bob Bolus years ago.
From the late '90s to the early aughts, we were friendly adversaries who appreciated each other's opinionated natures and willingness to say things no one wanted to hear. Bob was wrong about everything, but his ignorance and arrogance were unquestionably authentic. He was a bellicose showboat with a cracked hull, but he disrupted local government meetings with a pigheaded glee I found adorable.
It was fun. For a while. Bob was a handy foil for mocking whatever crackpot cause he was hawking at the moment, and he loved the ink and attention his tedious tirades generated. He was cartoonishly obnoxious, but rarely sniped at anyone who wasn't an elected official, a candidate for office, or me.
That changed in 2018, when Clarks Summit native Adam Rippon became the first openly gay athlete to qualify for the U.S. Winter Olympics Team. Rippon won a bronze medal in men's figure skating and brought positive international attention to Northeast Pennsylvania.
Bob was not on board. Seated next to me on a panel discussion of politics in the Trump era at Keystone College (my alma mater), he said 'no one would care' about Rippon 'if he wasn't gay.' He said 'real Americans' don't want to be 'represented by a gay.'
Homophobia was a new part of Bob's act. There was nothing funny about it. Loony, loud and ludicrous were replaced with unhinged, hissy and hateful. The next year, Bob debuted his new material on televised Scranton City Council meetings. The region's most cringeworthy 'Cro-MAGA Man' waged a quixotic campaign against Jessica Rothchild, then a candidate for council.
As I opined at the time, Rothchild became the first openly gay member of council thanks in large part to the bigoted bilge Bob spewed from the public podium. The married mother of two is now serving her second term. She was on the dais Tuesday when Bob came to share his rancid thoughts on Pride Month and trash a young woman for daring to make a veiled reference to a truth about himself Bob refuses to accept.
Here it is, for the umpteenth time: A past felony conviction disqualifies Bob from holding public office. If by some inconceivable quirk of the universe a majority of Scranton voters said, 'To hell with everything' and elected him mayor, he would be ineligible to serve. Bob has railed against this reality for years, but it remains resolute.
Bob claimed he was triggered by Angel Ramone, who recently moved to Scranton and routinely advocates for marginalized minorities at the public podium. She didn't say his name, but noted the futility of 'a candidate' who isn't eligible to serve.
Bob was also triggered by the sight of a Pride flag flying over City Hall. (If it was a pro-Trump or 'Bleep Joe Biden' banner, he'd salute it 24 hours a day with a lump in his throat and reverent tears streaming down his cheeks.) He also slandered the Pride flag as an affront to military veterans, as if no LGBTQ+ patriots have sacrificed life and limb in defense of Our Republic. That's an ugly, obvious lie, which Bob ironically capped by saying, 'Respect is earned, not demanded. They (LGBTQ+) didn't earn the respect they demand.'
Bob earned no respect as he deliberately misgendered Ramone several times, called her 'sweetheart' and threatened legal retribution if she continued to trigger him by telling the truth in a public forum. I loathe giving Bob the ink and attention he craves, but he delivered an encore performance at Wednesday's Lackawanna County commissioners' meeting and our LGBTQ+ neighbors deserve to be heard and defended.
Neighbors like Jessica McGuigan, 40, a mental health therapist who works primarily with the transgender community. Watching Bob's rant, she was most disappointed by council President Gerald Smurl's failure to step in and stop the nasty personal attack.
'Listen, I think people deserve the right to speak and to be heard,' McGuigan said. 'That's what these forums exist for, as long as it doesn't get to a place where it's inciting hatred, violence or hurt towards marginalized people.'
Council's rules for public comment, created in response to blowhards like Bob, are not vague:
'No person, including members of council, shall use their time during Citizens' Participation to personally insult or attack any individual. Name-calling, profanity, racial or ethnic slurs, discriminatory remarks based on race, color, religion, national origin … sex, gender identity, sexual orientation … shall not be permitted.'
Those who violate the rules 'shall be ruled out of order' and 'may be removed' by a police officer at the president's request. Bob clearly violated the rules and was rightly condemned by members of council and sane, decent citizens who followed him at the podium.
Smurl chose not to intervene while Bob trolled one of the city's most vulnerable constituencies and made a mockery of productive public participation in government.
'The other thing that really pushed every button that I have was at the end, when the council member (Smurl) thanked him for his remarks,' McGuigan said. 'And then, after he gets off of the microphone, (Bob) proceeds to continue yelling hateful things …
'We're all a part of this community, and we deserve to feel safe in public places. And it particularly hits differently during Pride Month, which is a month that's all about the journey that we've had to get to a place where we have visibility. So for this person to go to a city council meeting and express their views is one thing, but I also feel like it's important to emphasize that there are opinions that can cause harm and could potentially incite violence.'
I didn't call Smurl to ask him why he didn't gavel down Bob's diatribe and have him removed if he refused to relent. I don't care why. Smurl had a duty to direct the meeting in compliance with the standards set by council and the higher code of common decency. He failed. Smurl should learn from the experience and do better next time.
And there will be a next time. Bob will be back. At the podium and, regrettably, in this column. Sometimes, ignoring him is not an acceptable option. It will pain him to read it, but this isn't about Bob. It's about a once entirely marginalized community who refuses to go back 'into the closet' because bigots are triggered by their mere existence.
I stumbled my way through high school in the Reagan '80s. There were no openly gay or transgender students in my class, and no support or advocacy groups for any minority more at risk than the Dungeons and Dragons Club. There was no Pride Month, no rainbow flags flying over government buildings and no safe space for human beings whose chief demand is to be treated like human beings.
The LGBTQ+ community and society at large have come a long way since 'gay' was used as a synonym for 'weird' or 'lame' or worse. 'Queer' is no longer an epithet. Words once used as weapons are now signifiers of pride.
'It mirrors a little bit of what people in the brown and Black communities did,' McGuigan said. 'We're reclaiming words and terms that have been hurled and used as vitriol towards us.'
Bob gave up on learning anything new years ago. As a show of respect, I used to call him before mocking whatever crackpot cause he was hawking at the moment. We'd trade insults and swear at each other, but hang up peaceably. I didn't bother reaching out this time. I've heard it all before, and nothing he might say could add redeeming context to his dehumanization of people who dare demand to be accepted for who they are.
I accept Bob for who he is — a bitter, petty old crank who's mad at a world he won't even try to understand and who will say anything to get attention.
Bob would (and likely will) say the same about me, but, as he demonstrates any time he's near a microphone, Bob is wrong about everything.
CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, wishes you and yours a happy, peaceful Pride Month. Contact the writer: [e-mail]; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook.