Rita Addessa, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Lesbian and Gay Task Force

www.op.net/plgtf and Addessa@op.net 

 

Murderous bigotry (457 words)

 

In a Daily News Op-Ed (March 22, 2001), right-wing syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin describes in sickening detail the odious rape, torture, and murder of a 13 year old  boy named Jesse Dirhising. The rape, torture, and/or murder of any child – or of any human being frankly – should be morally repugnant to each of us.

 

Malken’s deeply felt concern about this one terrible death is curious, however. Past and present, conservative and right-wing ideologues have traditionally supported USA wars, inclusive of rape, torture and murder; generous government support and training for various thirld world military dictatorships and their attendant death squads; segregation and lynchings, now capital punishment and mass imprisonments; the dismantling of government’s role in protecting and promoting the health, welfare, and safety of each of its citizens; the dismantling of fragile and grossly underfunded public health, education, and welfare systems; environmental and worksite protections; economic rights; and assorted other human rights affecting of course all children. 

 

On reflection, Malken’s lamentation is on its face hypocritical and exploitative. It reveals a deep perversion of the truth in its familiar right-wing demagoguery. It attempts to equate the gay movement’s long struggle for civil and human rights with a prurient interest in the rape and murder of children through guilt by association and through its resurrection of long-ago debunked myths and stereotypes. These same unfounded stereotypes have been leveled against African Americans and Jews throughout our history and are intended to serve similar political purposes, i.e. to obfuscate the truth, to create false arguments, to inflame public opinion, and to deflect or reshape the discussion of underlying social and economic injustices necessary to maintain the status quo.

 

Malkin’s March 22 op ed is intended to thwart the basic civil and human rights struggle of a community besieged by ignorance and bigotry, a discourse she contributes to and inflames.

 

As  progressive communities struggle to hold on to the tenuous structure and framework of civil rights laws in this country, lesbian women and gay men as well as bisexual and transgendered people remain excluded from the basic promise of fairness implicit in these protections, nationwide. With few exceptions, it is perfectly legal for the public and

private sectors to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, education, marriage, and other rights that

most people take for granted.

 

Malkin’s reference to public leaders’ deafening silence is true but in relationship to the denial and deprivation of basic civil and human rights suffered by our people.  It is true in relationship to the denial of the integrity of our lives and our families. It is true in relationship to the denial of the extraordinary level of hate-based criminal violence we suffer (including rape, torture, and murder). And it is true in relationship to the denial of the disproportionate deaths of our children through stigma and suicide.

 

Malkin’s bigotry is malignant  and the Daily News’ legitimization of right wing propaganda against gay people or any  minority group is morally reprehensible. Shame!

 

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