Idiots. We’re surrounded by them. Today, more so than ever. While casually looking at the news this morning, I almost had a heart attack. Did you hear about Bob Costas ranting about Caitlyn Jenner being unworthy of the Arthur Ashe Award? Or Pat Robertson telling a grieving mother it’s OK her son died because he might have grown up to be Hitler? Or the Australian couple who has decided to divorce if marriage equality is passed? Idiots, all of them/ Read the stories below and tell me who wins the Idiot of the Day Award.

Bob Costas recently went on The Dan Patrick Show to rant about Caitlyn Jenner receiving the Arthur Ashe Award at the Espys, saying it was a “crass exploitation play” to “pump up audience” and play to the “gawker factor.”

While he vaguely concedes that what Caitlyn Jenner has done took “some courage,” (??!!!!!) he thinks the award should have gone to someone “more actively involved in sports,” (???!!!) such as “prominent people, kids in high school, amateur athletes who more closely fit the description” of what the award is about.

Mind you, WHAT THAT AWARD IS ABOUT is that it’s given to individuals “whose contributions transcend sports.” Says Wikipedia: “Often these transcendent figures are also athletes who have been at the top of their sport, such as Muhammad Ali, Dean Smith, Cathy Freeman.”

I’m sorry, I think Caitlyn’s zeitgeist-changing introduction to the world falls under that category, and she is MOST CERTAINLY an athlete who has been at the top of their sport. Ugh. How can Bob Costas not see that?

IDIOT.

Next up, we have the increasingly loony, Jesus-addled Pat Robertson. Horrible, horrible man, of course. But lately he seems… well… more unhinged than usual. When a grieving woman wrote to him asking him why a just God would let her three-year-old son die, Pat – in his infinite wisdom – he KNOWS God personally, remember – told her that the Lord probably killed her child before he or she could become Adolf Hitler.

Don’t believe me? Listen to his exact words:

“As far as God’s concerned, He knows the end from the beginning and He sees a little baby and that little baby could grow up to be Adolf Hitler, he could grow up to be Joseph Stalin, he could grow up to be some serial killer, or he could grow up to die of a hideous disease. God sees all of that, and for that life to be terminated while he’s a baby, he’s going to be with God forever in Heaven so it isn’t a bad thing.”

YOU TOLD A GRIEVING MOTHER NOT TO BE SAD BECAUSE HER DEAD CHILD WAS PROBABLY HITLER?

IDIOT.

Finally, we have the good Christian couple in Australia who have vowed to get divorced if marriage equality becomes legal.

Wait, what?

“Marriage is the union of a man and a woman before a community in the sight of God,” writes the not-homophobic-at-all Nick Jensen in an op-ed for the Canberra CityNews, “And the marriage of any couple is important to God regardless of whether that couple recognizes God’s involvement or authority in it. “My wife and I, as a matter of conscience, refuse to recognize the government’s regulation of marriage if its definition includes the solemnization of same sex couples.”

From HuffPo:

Jensen and his wife have been married for 10 years and have children together. But according to him, the Australian government would essentially be nullifying their marriage contract if it chooses to legalize same-sex marriage.

“For us, fundamentally, when we got married we signed a contract with the state and that contract was around the current definition of marriage and all the things that comes with it. Man and woman for life, for the sake of children,” Jensen told Buzzfeed News. “If it came to be that the definition of the contract was changed, the contract is now null and void.”

I… just… I can’t with this.

As many commenters have pointed out, isn’t this like putting a gun to your own head and holding yourself hostage? Or taking poison and waiting for everyone else to die?

Marriage is a civil contract, people. Adding religious ceremony to it is a choice, not a requirement. *BANGS HEAD AGAINST DESK*

So… Who’s the biggest idiot of the day? Bob Costas, Pat Robertson, or this homophobic Australian couple?