I really don’t understand the attraction to fur unless you are an Inuit. It makes no sense to me that celebrities who can afford anything would choose to decorate themselves with the flesh of another living thing. It’s just sort of creepy. In any case, my personal stand is that if that’s what they choose to spend their money on, then I don’t feel the need to provide them with any more of my money. It’s not the principle as much as it is the capital. Being able to afford to choose obligates you to choose compassionately, in my book. However, I don’t think anyone has the right to threaten violence against another based on choices–good or bad. Olympic figure skater Johnny Weir is claiming that he has received ‘serious threats’ because of his his (inexplicable) decision to add a white fur epaulet to one of his skating costumes. Since he has a reputation for being a bit of a drama queen, it’s not clear how ‘serious’ the threats were or if they actually existed outside of Johnny’s glamorous little mind. And since the Olympics are in Canada, a cold and unforgiving land where it is still legal to club baby seals to death, maybe the threats were not from animal activists at all, but from clubbers who just wanted to get their bloody little hands on that precious scrap of white fur. Sadly, since there is no documented proof of said threats, the world may never know. My own gay friend, Johnny (little known fact: one in every three gay men is named Johnny) summed it up perfectly: ”’What an ass! And what an ASS.”
