A story in the Advocate asserts that Right Wing Uses Colo. Tragedy to Vilify Gays, Secularism.
However, it’s not clear that the examples given are blaming gay people for the tragedy. What’s reported is that:
Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association is apparently the first to play the gay card this time. Reacting to news that the Aurora Chick-fil-A was providing free food to police and other emergency personnel on the scene, Fischer tweeted, “Chick-fil-A provides free meals to first responders in CO. Let’s see Big Gay demonize that.”
A thoroughly churlish comment, but more about the LGBT boycott of the anti-gay rights fast food chain (see posting below) than about culpability for the shooting.
The Advocate further reports that:
Without mentioning LGBT people specifically, Fischer cites these phenomena as among the consequences [of ending school prayer]: “The nuclear family is breaking apart at culture-destroying rates. One of out every five adults in America has a lifelong, incurable sexually transmitted disease.”
Blaming the end of mandatory school prayer may be reactionary and theocratic, but I’m still not seeing the “vilify gays” part here. But the piece continues:
Also blaming the tragedy on “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs” was Texas congressman Louie Gohmert, who appeared on a Heritage Foundation radio show hosted by former congressman Ernest Istook of Oklahoma. “We have been at war with the very pillars, the very foundation of this country,” Gohmert said.
That’s closer to, but not quite saying, that same-sex marriage (for example) has degraded society and is thus responsible for the shooting. But less than “vilify gays” in my book. In addition, I’m open to the argument that a general move away from a widely shared focus on the importance of teaching ethics and morality, in their true sense, has, in fact, degraded our culture.
Even if the above veers on scapegoating, let’s note that it’s not just the rightwing that can be accused of making spurious accusations. Moments after the suspect’s name became known, Brian Ross of ABC News drew a possible, but ultimately specious, Tea Party connection with the shooter. And in fact, leftwing activists have been quick to accuse tea party activists of all manner of hate-incitement, with little or no evidence.
In a highly polarized political world, everything is seen as fodder for political gain.
9 Comments for “Never Let a Tragedy Go to Waste”
posted by Doug on
And you Stephan Miller contribute to that polarized political world as much as anyone else.
posted by Jorge on
This is a surprisingly un-churlish blog post.
Maybe Mr. Miller doesn’t want to exploit this incident for political gain.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The difference between the two, Stephen, is this:
(1) Brian Ross’s false statement was made by a reporter who was out in front of his facts (ABC had picked up on a James Holmes who was a Tea Party member, but who was not the James Holmes who did the shooting, and reported a possible connection [“ABC’s Brian Ross reported this morning that there is “a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site … talking about him joining the Tea Party last year. Now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes,” Ross cautioned “but it’s Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.”“] before vetting) and quickly corrected.
(2) The Fischer/Gohmert/etc gay-bashing was an entirely standard response from far-right, anti-gay religious/social conservative politicos, based on nothing at all, and so predictable that the Advocate and other gay media could practically write the story in advance.
In short, one was a journalistic mistake and the other a political strategy, and treating the former as an example of the latter is specious.
What is more interesting than either — reporters often get things wrong in the first hours of a major news story, and the likes of Fischer/Gohmert/Phelps can be counted on to use anything and everything as an opportunity to gay-bash — is that Brietbart’s predicted scapegoating from the left (“The report has already set off alarm bells on the right. At Brietbart.com, the conservative news site, Joel Pollak has accused ABC News of “scapegoating.” “How interesting that Ross and ABC News should think to look to the Tea Party website first–and to broadcast politically volatile information without verifying if that ‘Jim Holmes’ is the same as the suspect,” Pollak writes. “Look for more scapegoating from the mainstream media and the Democrats in the hours and days to follow.”” never materialized, which is why you are having to try to equate unlikes in your post.
posted by Jorge on
In short, one was a journalistic mistake and the other a political strategy, and treating the former as an example of the latter is specious.
I don’t care how “reputable” a reporter Brian Ross is said to be, you are dead wrong. There is no difference.
posted by Doug on
So there is no difference between an honest mistake and an intentional act.
Therefore all killing is first degree murder.
posted by Another Steve on
“Honest mistake” my foot! You have to start with a biased view that would lead you to suspect that a mass murderer would be a tea party type in the first place, and then let that bias override the otherwise clear fact that the shooter has a very common name.
As Miller points out, making immediate accusations against the tea party after a violent incident is nothing new for the main stream media — it’s old hat. It’s fit the liberal media narrative.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“Honest mistake” my foot! You have to start with a biased view that would lead you to suspect that a mass murderer would be a tea party type in the first place, and then let that bias override the otherwise clear fact that the shooter has a very common name.
As the report Stephen linked to noted (quoted in my comment) (a) the shooter James Holmes and the innocent James Holmes were both from Aurora (“ABC’s Brian Ross reported this morning that there is “a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site … talking about him joining the Tea Party last year.”) and (b) Ross’s statement was qualified “Now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes,” Ross cautioned “but it’s Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.”
As the article Stephen posted also notes, the statement was not repeated, and ABC quickly corrected the error.
Obviously, Ross’s got ahead of his story, and the report should not have been put on the air without further verification, but it was qualified when made and quickly corrected when the facts were known. More to the point, it was not repeated and it was not picked up by other “biased liberal media” outlets.
The ABC News gaff seems to me to be much like the speculation in the first hours of reporting that the Oklahoma City bombing was an act of “foreign terrorists”, that is, a mistake in reporting judgement that was corrected within hours, and of an entirely different quality than the calculated, political statements coming from Fischer and Gohmert, which were clearly intended to grind a political axe.
Stephen’s practice on IGF whenever he takes a punch at the right-wing lunatic fringe like Fischer and Gohmert is to close his post with a counter punch at the “left/liberals”. To my way of thinking, Stephen is comparing apples and oranges in this case, and the counter punch strained to the point of silliness.
posted by Houndentenor on
He was wrong because he was lazy. This highlights the #1 problem in what passes for journalism these days. He googled the shooters name and up popped something about someone with the same or a similar name. It would have taken minutes to find out if that was the same person or not. There’s no excuse for such sloppy, shoddy work at that level. I’d have fired him.
posted by Jorge on
Don’t wave around guns and shoot them at people’s heads.