On last night's episode of the U.K.'s Celebrity Big Brother, heavyweight champ and Arthur remake actor Evander Holyfield said some barely intelligible nonsense about gay people, namely that homosexuality is a choice, like being "handicapped," and fixable.

The entire segment is above, but below is a selection of his quotes. They're all stupid:

"That ain't normal"

"The Bible lets you know that's wrong, that's right"

"If you're born and your leg was turned this way, what do you do? You go to the doctor and you get it fixed back right, right?"

"Only thing I'm trying to tell you, if…you know how handicapped people is born, now you can't say, 'cause they were born that way you can't move that, 'cause [inaudible]"

"Yes it is a choice. How can you not say, you ain't gay unless you sleeping with the opposite sex. That ain't the way nobody made."

The fellow houseguest he told this to, former UK Apprentice contestant Luisa Zissman, attempted to shut the conversation down multiple times to no avail. Holyfield was then seen being reprimanded by the powers that be (Big Brother, I guess) for making "inappropriate" comments. To this, TMZ responded:



Why do people pretend that free speech is a one-way street and that only bigotry has the green light? If someone says something based on total ignorance of an already disenfranchised segment of the population because it's their freedom to do so, then it's the freedom of everyone else who is smarter to say, "Shut the fuck up." And that is how is generally goes. Fewer and fewer people get a free pass for saying shit like this in public these days. What's stupider than believing the nonsense that Holyfield spews is believing that you can say this on TV and coast by without consequences. You'd think that people on TV would watch TV every once in a while to understand how things work.

But, of course, these people—Holyfield, the human pubic mounds on Duck Dynasty, the fools on last season of U.S. Big Brother—are hired because they are that dumb and because dumb people do dumb shit and dumb shit routinely equals good TV. Business as usual.

And good TV this was, not just because it commanded attention and whipped up outrage (TV exists to make people care about what's on it), but because it's always reassuring to see someone express their hatred so inarticulately, with such profound stupidity at its core. Holyfield has no basis for his claims other than his own sense of superiority and what he thinks the Bible says. People like this are like one-men Westboro Baptist Churches. They put a terrible face on their rotten cause. They're a big reason why that side of the culture is rapidly becoming antiquated. They are tangible, working examples of wrongness.

TMZ ran an update in which Holyfield's son Ewin Holyfield claims, "My dad is the most loving and caring person you will ever meet. He treats everyone like a human being ... even if they are homosexual." Even if they're homosexual? I didn't realize he was Gandhi. Ewin adds that he has a gay uncle (Evander's brother-in-law) and that Evander treated him like a brother. (That means Holyfield kicked the shit out of him, right? Isn't that what brothers do?) Also:

My dad feels that being gay is a choice ... and naturally that's how things work. You cannot procreate and make a baby with two women, or two men. But at the same time, my dad is not going to judge someone for their sexual orientation.

Yeah, great source, who learned from a greater source. Listen to this guy, for sure.