When Gabby Gifford was shot in Tucson, there was a loud uproar. The local sheriff, Gifford's husband, and others in the political arena assured us all that it was the fault of the conservatives. It was people like Sarah Palin who spoke of "targeting Arizona" as a state to win. There, see? Fomenting violence. Clearly. The obviously looney Jared Loughner was acting on conservative, right wing values. That was it. Those darn Tea Partiers. Hatemongers!
Yesterday a man (Floyd Corkins?) walked into the offices of the Family Research Council (FRC), made an unclear statement, was challenged by a security guard, shot said guard, and was wrestled to the ground and subdued. The Washington D.C. Police Chief said, "The security officer here is a hero as far as I'm concerned." Good job. What was the man doing? Well, they're not sure, but he had materials about Chick-Fil-A restaurants in his vehicle.
Now, what is the connection? Well, when Dan Cathy of Chick-Fil-A stood up for traditional marriage, some of the public, most of the homosexual community, and much of the media went to war. "Anti-gay!" they yelled. They falsely accused Mr. Cathy of making "anti-gay statements" and declared that he was "opposed to gay marriage" (although the phrase never once came out of his mouth). And when others stood up and said, "Hey, he should be allowed to exercise his free speech," they were shouted down. "It's not about free speech. It's about hate. Chick-Fil-A donates to hate groups!" Hate groups? Yes, apparently. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a self-appointed defender of tolerance and warrior against hate, has named organizations like Focus on the Family and ... wait for it ... the Family Research Council as "hate groups". According to their website, the "Christian Right" appears to be a hate group all its own. By their standards, anyone who classifies homosexual behavior as perverted are classified as part of a hate group.
So, now this guy, armed with Chick-Fil-A information and a 9mm hand gun, walks into an organization classified loudly by an arbitrary organization as a "hate group", prepared to start killing.
I protested when so many voices blamed the shooting in Tucson on conservatives. Made no sense. And I'd suggest it makes equal sense to pin yesterday's attack on the FRC on the Southern Poverty Law Center and the rest who have spread the intolerant classification of "hate group" on the FRC. On the other hand, I can much more easily see a direct correlation between the SPLC and this shooting than I can with the Tucson shooting and conservative banter.
My question, however, is this. Will we hear anything about this in the media? (I haven't so far.) Will loud liberal voices protest that the SPLC et. al has spread hate and fomented violence against conservatives? Will the LGBT community rise up and condemn the shooting? "It wasn't us! We aren't in favor of that kind of stuff!" I'm not holding my breath. Turn about may be fair play, but it doesn't generally look today like "fair play" is really very high on their list of priorities.
3 comments:
Rather than holding your breath or not...try google.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/16/family-research-council-shooting-unleashes-conservative-vengeance-on-twitter.html
Media is covering the incident; gay rights groups are condemning it.
(Interesting. Within a 3-minute interval I got no less than 10 comments from you -- all identical. I wonder what's up with that?)
The article you referenced indicated that the outrage was primarily conservative. I am glad to see, however, that it's not solely conservative.
I think that it's very possible that Corkins' actions were caused, in part, by the SPLC. That doesn't mean, however, that I blame the SPLC any more than I blame Christianity for the Crusades. That is, just because some nut-case takes the SPLC's classification of "hate group" as a call to violence doesn't mean the SPLC meant it as such.
That being said, the SPLC's classification of "hate group" in this case is so broad as to include anyone that does not thoroughly embrace homosexual behavior ... as if that's the only possible view and disagreeing with that view is hate. Not a rational position to hold on the face of it.
(And you can't imagine how ... pleasantly ... surprised I was to see you commenting on my blog.)
I did hear, yesterday, a statement put out by some LGBT group(s) that did condemn the incident in ways similar to condemnations of other such actions of the past. It sounded nicely worded and I hope it was sincere.
But I agree, when the SPLC and other leftist organizations refer to Christian organizations as hate groups for the crime of defending traditional definitions and values, it is far easier to make the connection between this shooter's actions and the accusations by leftists regarding other shooters of having been influenced by right-wing pundits or organizations. This is especially true considering most (if not all) of those previous incidents were perpetrated by lunatics more closely associated with left-leaning ideologies than conservative. In this case, the shooter was without doubt aligned with the opposing ideology of the victimized organization.
Post a Comment