May 02, 2005
The Anti-Gay Industry Kills
by Jeff Langstraat
Last week, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs released its annual report on anti-queer violence. The report notes a 4% increase in such violence last year, with a 7% increase in the number of perpetrators of such violence. Here in Boston, attacks rose 30%; one-third of those attacks took place in February and March. Those months are significant because the Constitutional Convention, and most heated debate over same-sex marriage, took place then. This should come as no surprise. Those of us involved in the queer anti-violence movement already know that anti-gay violence has a tendency to increase during periods when there is controversy surrounding queers. If gay folks are the focus of controversy, gay folks are being attacked...and killed.
On the day the report was released, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force issued a press release entitled Task Force Calls Rise in Anti-Gay Crime a Product of America's Anti-Gay Industry. Here is what it said:
"These words obviously do not just vanish into the ether - as intended, they are absorbed and become fuel and justification for violence. To say otherwise defies reality.
The literal blood of the thousands of gay people physically wounded by hate during 2004 is on the hands of Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and so many others who spew hate for partisan gain and personal enrichment."
I didn't really plan on writing anything about the NCAVP report. That was until I read this diary at dailyKos. It's a painfully raw piece infused with righteous anger, raging at what the NGLTF has referred to as the "anti-gay industry." It's an apt description. Here's a bit of the diary:
We were both 17. We met at 15. It wasn't long before we were inseparable. For two years we did everything together. We fell in love. Perhaps it was teenage hormones, infatuation, but it was two years of secret bliss and I've only felt that kind of love once again since. He became my only refuge in a world of hate. We promised each other to live our lives together, forever.
Till that day. He broke our promise. His father had found out he was a 'fag', to this day I do not know how, called him a pervert and kicked him out of the home. I guess my love was not strong enough for him, his father's rejection stronger. We lost him that same day. It was over two decades ago, I go most of my life now not thinking about it. My life is so far from that pain today, a soulmate, a cherished daughter, a loving family and friends. But on days like today, the pain returns, vividly.
and now the anger...
[snip]
Their words KILL, their words and lies cause suffering and harm. THEY killed my first love. THEY beat me to a pulp when I 16 because i was a 'fag', THEY made me suffer through years of 'change therapy' and wish i were dead, THEY made a friend marry a women so he could remain a 'good Christian' but instead lived years of tortured silence, THEY make it difficult to return to our home states because our family wouldn't be welcome, THEY make it so our family has to spend thousands of dollars and hours and hours to keep us legally protected, THEY are causing suffering and pain.
Please read it. It's a painful piece. It's a (rightfully) vicious indictment of the anti-gay industry.
How many times have we heard, "Same-sex marriage will be the downfall of civilization?" A Spanish Bishop even went so far as to say that Catholics were required to resist same-sex marriage because, "If you give obedience to the law priority over obedience to your conscience, that leads to Auschwitz," and "The people who made Auschwitz were not criminals, but people who had been forced to, or thought they had a duty to, obey the laws of the Nazi government rather than their own conscience." Got that? "I do"="Sieg' Heil!"
Jerry Falwell blamed us for 9/11, with Pat Robertson agreeing wholeheartedly: And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way--all of them who have tried to secularize America--I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."
How many times have we heard ourselves called degenerate, pathological, immoral? How many times have we been compared to animals? Santorum's man-on-dog and Cornyn's box turtle come to mind.
How many times have we heard that AIDS is the punishment of a vengeful God? Anyone remember Pat Buchanan's great line? "The poor homosexuals -- they have declared war upon nature, and now nature is extracting an awful retribution (AIDS)."
How many times have we heard the lies about pedophilia and recruitment? James Dobson is happily spreading it: "Moms and dads, are you listening? This movement is the greatest threat to your children. It is a particular danger to your wide-eyed boys, who have no idea what demoralization is planned for them."
Their hatred, their vile lies and their evil attacks on our families, our communities, and our basic worth demonstrate that these people lack any sense of human decency.
For too long, they've been allowed to get away with it. Reporters don't challenge their bullshit, because that would violate their mythical "objectivity." The Democratic Party at the national level can only be bothered to defend Constitutional principles, not gay lives...and in far too many states the party is a willing accomplice to the TheoFascists' attacks on us.
Is it any wonder people think it's ok to harass, beat and kill us?
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