Is July “Worldwide ‘Blame the Gays’ Month”, or something?
Seriously. Maybe it’s the building momentum of various hot-button issues as we slowly gear up towards the 2008 election, but lately it seems as if the gay community has become the scapegoat for just about every evil under the sun. Higher divorce rate among heteros? Blame the gays for wanting to corrupt marriage. Natural disasters? Oh, it’s just us filthy gays, inciting the wrath of God or Allah or Wallah-Wallah-Bing-Bang. Can’t control your own violent impulses? It’s those damned gays. Case in point:
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (JUNE 14, 2006) The homosexual movement’s strategy of vicious harassment and provocation continues, with the full cooperation of the police and judiciary.
Diane Steele, a mother from western Massachusetts, came to the Constitutional Convention with her 9-year-old son on June 14 along with hundreds of others to hold a sign and support the Marriage Amendment. [...] Diane was peaceably standing on the pro-family side of the street with her son, inside the blue police barricade. Her sign was provocative but nothing like the hate-filled anti-Christian signs the homosexual activists were waving. Even a little dissent isn’t tolerated.
Sexual-laced verbal assault
It’s very clear that they set her up. Soon after the vote was announced, homosexual rights supporter Jack Kirschenbaun of Malden went across the street and stood right next to her. A friend was standing right in front of them. Kirschenbaun began a vicious attack against Diane. “Why do you hate so much,” he started out, and it went on from there non-stop, without allowing Diane to even reply. Then it got sexual. “Are you a virgin?” he shouted at her. “Have you ever had an orgasm.”
At that point, Diane slapped him. “I wasn’t really thinking about it,” she said later. “It was just an instinctive reaction.”
I’m going to play devil’s advocate here and say that in this situation, both sides were at fault. Both sides behaved immaturely, rudely, reprehensibly, but that’s no excuse to cross the line into physical violence. I’d say Kirschenbaun was within his rights when he asked her “Why do you hate so much?”, but degenerating into personal sexual insults doesn’t even pertain to the issue at hand. They were both wrong for their behavior; I’m not going to wholly take Kirschenbaun’s side just because he’s a gay activist.
But I am going to say that the rather wild claim that Steele was “set up” for the incident is as ridiculous and biased as the entire self-righteous tone of the article. From the way the article’s written, I honestly doubt the veracity of the recounted dialogue, but even more I doubt at all that Steele was deliberately targeted. The article outlines her as a blameless victim. I’m sorry, but I can not picture anyone as a blameless victim when they’re carrying a sign like this:
What was that? Her sign was “provocative”? Gee, ya think? Sure, anyone showing up at a convention to protest with a sign like that is just full of love and bubbles and sunshine and would never think anything bad about anyone, let alone hurt them without provocation. She’s practically a real-life version of Godwin’s Law - if you don’t like something, find a way to compare it to the Nazis, and then you’ll always look like the good guy. And this poor, defenseless woman couldn’t possibly have acted out of anger to a spontaneous situation, could she?
No, no, it was a conspiracy by those damned gays. You know it was. I know it was. Hell, every gay in the nation was in on it.
Only we weren’t.
Fer chrissakes, people will try to make a martyr out of anyone these days, won’t they? Catch a grip on reality, people: sometimes things just happen. This was not a deliberate setup; this was a result of bad behavior on both sides - spontaneous bad behavior, but bad behavior nonetheless. It’s hard to make a victim out of a willing antagonist.
Stop blaming us for the consequences of your own bigoted behavior. Was Kirschenbaun wrong in challenging Steele? No. Free speech is free speech, and just as she has a right to express her opinion (no matter how hateful), he has a right to validly challenge that opinion. Was Kirschenbaun wrong for the language he used to challenge Steele? If it actually happened that way, then yes. But does that mean that Steele was justified in striking him?
No. No, no, and I say it again, no. Self-righteousness is not an excuse to promote a whackjob conspiracy theory against an entire minority culture just to justify your own bad behavior. You are not right, and you are not righteous.
Try taking a little damned blame yourself, for once.
Even better, try taking a little responsibility.
P.S. Thanks to Anji for the link that led me to the original story.
constitutional convention, boston, massachusetts, diane steele, jack kirschenbaum, homophobia, marriage act, sexual harassment, physical assault
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:08 am
I just… can’t stop boggling over that sign. So not only is she comparing the “gay agenda” to Nazi Germany, she’s also saying they’re all pedophiles? What a loaded accusation.
Also: yeah, I call foul play on them both. Personal insults never help any side in a debate, and physical violence in that situation is just stupid - *especially* when it’s a protest like that, with police all around.
July 3rd, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Spin, spin spin goes the media…
Dear lord people, don’t you learn in *elementary school* that “Oh, but he made me hit him!” doesn’t cut it?
As a dual-citizen of the internet, I am somewhat perversely reassured that people can be just as stupid and callow off the tubes, and that not even Godwin’s Law is a pure internet phenomenon (or perhaps it’s spillage?). But then, I’m weird.