Cops for Homosexuals?

Give me a break!

And, what is with tolerating the “anti-authoritarian streak” within their own forces?

That is truly sad… I couldn’t really stomach the whole thing… cultural decline is right. Makes me want to run to the hills with my family.

Did they really need to refer to his auto as a “cruiser?”

Categorizing citizens based on who they have sex with, jab? I’m afraid you might be a tad biased. Protecting all citizens doesn’t require the police force to break itself down based on the color or sexual proclivities of the people they’re supposed to protect. The whole thing is just as I said: sadly stupid. I’m sickened by it, actually. The whole PC jumble of junk makes me ill. Look at your response to David L. You’re hysterical.

Oh, and Nardo, I noticed that too. Wasn’t sure if the author meant to be cute or not. Either way, my response was to say “what a dumb-@$$”. and shake my head.
While I have no problem with the unit, the authors tone was a bit annoying. Oh well.

REVISITING THE MATTHEW SHEPARD MURDER
By Michelle Malkin · November 26, 2004 12:03 PM
Tonight, ABC News will air a controversial report on 20/20 about the Matthew Shepard murder. The crux of the segment is that Shepard’s killers may have been motivated by money and drugs rather than hatred of gays. One of the killers, Aaron McKinney, was himself bisexual, according to information provided to ABC News by two of McKinney’s friends.

Not surprisingly, ABC News has been subjected to withering criticism for airing the segment. I have yet to see any evidence, however, that ABC got any of its facts wrong.
—————-
ABC News
New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder
Killers Talk About Crime That Shocked the Nation
Dec. 1, 2004 – Six years ago, on a cold October night on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyo., 21-year-old gay college student Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten, tied to a fence and left for dead. He was found 18 hours later and rushed to the hospital, where he lingered on the edge of death for nearly five days before succumbing to his injuries.

The story garnered national attention when the attack was characterized as a hate crime. But Shepard’s killers, in their first interview since their convictions, tell “20/20’s” Elizabeth Vargas that money and drugs motivated their actions that night, not hatred of gays.

While Shepard lay unconscious in a hospital, the national press quickly arrived in Laramie. Cal Rerucha, who prosecuted the case, told Vargas the media descended on Laramie “like locusts.”

“We knew in the newsroom the day it happened, this is going to be a huge story, this is going to attract international interest,” said Jason Marsden of “The Casper Star-Tribune.”

“I remember one of my fellow reporters saying, ‘this kid is going to be the new poster child for gay rights,” he added. News of Shepard’s death sparked reaction overseas and demonstrations across America.

“I think a lot of gay people, when they first heard of that horrifying event, felt sort of punched in the stomach. I mean it kind of encapsulated all our fears of being victimized,” said writer Andrew Sullivan, a prominent gay rights advocate.

But as the push for gay rights found new force, so did a corresponding backlash from anti-gay opponents who came from out of state to grab a piece of the media spotlight.

Tensions were so high that Shepard’s father wore a bulletproof vest under his suit when he spoke at his son’s funeral service.

“The saddest part of this whole case was at Matthew’s funeral, when they, these people, refused to let Matthew be buried with dignity,” said Rerucha. “I never saw people that could hate so much.”

Killers Both Receive Two Consecutive Life Sentences
Local residents Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, both 21 at the time, were charged with Shepard’s murder. Henderson’s case came before the court first. To avoid the possibility of receiving the death penalty, he pleaded guilty to murder and kidnapping and received two consecutive life terms in prison.
McKinney’s case went to trial a year after Shepard’s death. He was convicted of felony murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping. Before the jury was about to decide his sentence, he, too, reached a deal that allowed him to avoid a possible death penalty. Both men are serving double life sentences in prison.

Authorities asked “20/20″ not to disclose the prison location.

While McKinney and Henderson admit to killing Shepard, both men — and the man who prosecuted the case — now say the real story is not what it seemed.

Many area residents were shocked that the crime was committed by two young men from their community. But both McKinney and Henderson came from classically troubled backgrounds.

Henderson was born to a teenage alcoholic and raised without a father. He says he saw his mother being beaten up by a series of boyfriends, some of whom also assaulted Henderson.

McKinney’s childhood, too, was less than picture-perfect. His father, a long-haul trucker, was rarely home and eventually divorced McKinney’s mother, a nurse who later died as a result of a botched surgery. McKinney received a malpractice settlement of nearly $100,000 after his mother’s death. He says he spent most of that money on things like cars and drugs.

McKinney admits to Vargas that by the time he was 18 he had a serious methamphetamine habit.

Shepard Haunted by Own Difficulties
Despite his strong family life, Shepard had troubles of his own. His mother, Judy Shepard, says her son’s problems had started three years earlier during a high school trip to Morocco, where he was beaten and raped.

“It made him pull within himself. He became withdrawn, depression, panic attacks,” she said.

Some of Shepard’s friends say he was still a troubled young man when he enrolled at the University of Wyoming in the fall of 1998.

Tom O’Connor, known as “Doc,” who ran a limousine service and sometimes drove Shepard, said just days before Shepard’s death, Matt told him he was HIV-positive and was considering suicide.

One of Shepard’s college friends, Tina LaBrie, was concerned that Shepard’s depression might be somehow connected to involvement with drugs. “He said ‘Everywhere I move, it seems like I get sucked into the drug scene,’” LaBrie told Vargas.

Laramie’s Dangerous World of Methamphetamine
As a heavy user and a dealer, McKinney was well-known with the methamphetamine crowd, according to Ryan Bopp, who was one of McKinney’s friends and drug associates at the time. By the fall of 1998, McKinney had blown through his inheritance and was now the parent of a new baby with his girlfriend, Kristen Price.
“I think he was really torn because it is the desperation of getting your fix or taking care of your family,” Price said. In the days leading up to the attack on Shepard, she said, McKinney was using methamphetamine every day.

Bopp, who says he left Laramie and the drug world behind six years ago, told “20/20″ that he and McKinney had been on a drug binge in the week leading up to the attack on Shepard.

“Aaron and I had been awake for about a week or so prior to this whole thing happening ,” Bopp said. “We were on a hard-core bender that week.”

Bopp also admits that a week before the murder he was so desperate for methamphetamine, that he traded McKinney a .357-Magnum pistol in exchange for one gram of methamphetamine. McKinney would later use that weapon to beat Shepard.

The Night of the Crime
McKinney told Vargas he set out the night of Oct. 6, 1998, to rob a drug dealer of $10,000 worth of methamphetamine. But after several attempts, McKinney was not able to carry out his plan.
Henderson said he thought if he could keep McKinney drinking, he’d forget the robbery plan.

But according to McKinney, when he encountered Shepard at the Fireside Lounge, he saw an easy mark.

McKinney told “20/20″ Shepard was well-dressed and assumed he had a lot of cash.

Shepard was sitting at the bar, McKinney recalls. “He said he was too drunk to go home. And then he asked me if I’d give him a ride. So I thought, yeah, sure, what the hell,” according to McKinney.

All three got in the front seat of McKinney’s pickup, and Henderson took the wheel. McKinney told police that at some point Shepard reached over and grabbed his leg. In response, McKinney said, he hit him with his pistol. “I was getting ready to pull it on him anyway,” he said.

McKinney says he asked for, and got, Shepard’s wallet, which had only $30 in it. But even though Shepard handed over his money, McKinney continued beating him.

When pressed by Vargas as to why he continued beating Shepard after he had already taken his wallet, McKinney said, “Sometimes when you have that kind of rage going through you, there’s no stopping it. I’ve attacked my best friends coming off of meth binges.”

McKinney says he directed Henderson to drive the truck to a secluded spot on the outskirts of Laramie so they could leave Shepard and have time to get away. They stopped at a wooden buck fence and took Shepard from the truck.

On McKinney’s instructions, Henderson got a rope from the truck and tied Shepard to a fence post. Henderson claims at some point he tried, but failed, to stop McKinney from beating Shepard further.

In a statement to the court, Henderson said McKinney struck him across the face with the gun when he tried to stop the continued beating of Shepard.

Henderson retreated to the truck, leaving McKinney alone with Shepard at the fence. McKinney tells “20/20″ he fears these last blows he dealt Shepard at the fence were the fatal blows.

New Fracas Leads to Arrest
McKinney took Shepard’s wallet and his shoes, got back in the truck and told Henderson to drive to town. He says his plan was to burglarize Shepard’s apartment. But when they parked the truck they encountered two young men who police say were vandalizing cars. Hostile words led to a fight and for the second time that night, McKinney went on the attack.
One of the men was struck so hard his skull was fractured. The injured man’s friend retaliated, slamming McKinney in the head with a small bat. Everyone fled, just before a police car happened on the scene.

Sgt. Flint Waters gave chase and grabbed Henderson. Then he discovered some key evidence that would later be used to link Henderson and McKinney to the attack on Shepard.

“I looked in the back of the truck and laying in the back of the truck was a large-frame revolver. The thing was huge, like an 8-inch barrel that had blood all over it. And there was some rope and a coat in the truck; there was I believe a shoe sitting in the front. … Seeing that the gun covered in blood, I assumed that there was a lot more going on than what we’d stumbled onto so far,” he said.

With that much evidence and McKinney’s later confession, the attack on Shepard was not a hard case to solve. McKinney and Henderson were charged with murder. The mystery in this story was not who did it, but why?

Shepard’s Friends Suspect Attack Was Hate-Motivated
Just hours after Shepard’s battered body was discovered, and before anyone knew who had beaten him, Shepard’s friends Walt Boulden and Alex Trout began spreading the word that Shepard was openly gay and that they were concerned the attack may have been a gay-bashing.

Boulden told “20/20″ in an interview shortly after the attack in 1998, “I know in the core of my heart it happened because he revealed he was gay. And it’s chilling. They targeted him because he was gay.”

Prosecutor Rerucha recalls that Shepard’s friends also contacted his office. Rerucha told “20/20,” “They were calling the County Attorney’s office, they were calling the media and indicating Matthew Shepard is gay and we don’t want the fact that he is gay to go unnoticed.”

Helping fuel the gay hate crime theory were statements made to police and the media by Kristen Price, McKinney’s girlfriend. (Price was charged with felony accessory after-the-fact to first-degree murder. She later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of misdemeanor interference with police officers.)

Price now says that at the time of the crime she thought things would go easier for McKinney if his violence were seen as a panic reaction to an unwanted gay sexual advance.

But today, Price tells Vargas the initial statements she made were not true and tells Vargas that McKinney’s motive was money and drugs. “I don’t think it was a hate crime at all. I never did,” she said.

Former Laramie Police Detective Ben Fritzen, one of the lead investigators in the case, also believed robbery was the primary motive. “Matthew Shepard’s sexual preference or sexual orientation certainly wasn’t the motive in the homicide,” he said.

“If it wasn’t Shepard, they would have found another easy target. What it came down to really is drugs and money and two punks that were out looking for it,” Fritzen said.

‘All I Wanted to Do Was Beat Him Up and Rob Him’
Asked directly whether he targeted and attacked Shepard because he was gay, McKinney told Vargas, “No. I did not. … I would say it wasn’t a hate crime. All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him.” But if the attackers were just trying to rob someone to get a drug fix, why did they beat Shepard so savagely?

Rerucha attributes McKinney’s rage and his savage beating of Shepard to his drug abuse. “The methamphetamine just fueled to this point where there was no control. It was a horrible, horrible, horrible murder. It was a murder that was once again driven by drugs,” Rerucha said.

Dr. Rick Rawson, a professor at UCLA who has studied the link between methamphetamine and violence, tells “20/20″ the drug can trigger episodes of violent behavior.

“In the first weeks after you’ve stopped using it, the kinds of triggers that can set off an episode are completely unpredictable. It can be: you say a word with the wrong inflection, you touch someone on the shoulder. It’s completely unpredictable as to what will set somebody off” Rawson said.

“If Aaron McKinney had not become involved with methamphetamine, Matthew Shepard would be alive today,” Rerucha said.

Did Matthew Shepard Know His Killers?
Another widely held belief about the case is that McKinney and Shepard had never met before their fateful encounter at the Fireside Lounge. But a number of sources tell “20/20″ the two were not strangers.

“Everybody knew Matt Shepard was a partier just like Aaron, just like the rest of us,” said Bopp.

In fact, Bopp said he had seen Shepard and McKinney together at parties. “Aaron was selling [drugs] and him and Matt would go off to the side and they’d come back. And Matt would be doing some meth then,” he said.

Though they frequented the same party scene, McKinney maintains he had never met Shepard before the night of the crime and wonders why people might say he had. “I’ve never met him. … Maybe they seen us somewhere in the same spot or something. I don’t know,” McKinney said.

A bartender familiar with the local drug scene, who asked to be identified only as “Jean,” says she was friendly with Shepard. She also says McKinney and Shepard knew each other.

When she learned of the beating, she said, she recalls thinking, “It’s either money or dope, yeah. He’d be the perfect target especially because Aaron knew him.”

Another Laramie resident, Elaine Baker, says she also saw McKinney and Shepard together in a social situation. Several weeks before the murder, she spent a night on the town in Doc O’Connor’s limousine with a group that included both McKinney and Shepard.

“In the back of the limo, there was me, Stephanie, Doc, Aaron, Matthew Shepard,” she said. As word spread of the attack on Shepard, other people who knew him also suspected the drug scene might somehow be involved.

In fact, former Laramie police Cmdr. Dave O’Malley got a call from a friend of Shepard suggesting that. Nevertheless, O’Malley doesn’t believe drug use motivated the attackers.

“I really don’t think he was in a methamphetamine-induced rage when this happened. I don’t buy it at all,” O’Malley said. “I feel comfortable in my own heart that they did what they did to Matt because they [had] hatred toward him for being gay,” he said.

Shepard’s mother, Judy, also said she doesn’t buy into theories that the attack was primarily driven by drugs and money rather than hatred of her son’s homosexuality.

“I’m just not buying into that. There were a lot of things going on that night, and hate was one of them, and they murdered my son ultimately. Anything else we find out just doesn’t, just doesn’t change that fact,” she said.

Did McKinney Have a Secret Sex Life?
O’Connor had known Aaron McKinney for years. In flush times, McKinney partied in O’Connor’s limos, and, in fact, McKinney and his girlfriend lived for a while in an apartment on O’Connor’s property.

O’Connor says he never heard McKinney express any anti-gay attitudes. In his interview with Vargas, O’Connor reveals his belief that McKinney is bisexual. “I know of an instance where he had a three-way, two guys and one gal,” he said. “Because he did it with me.”

O’Connor added, “I know he’s bisexual. There ain’t no doubt in my mind. He is bisexual.”

McKinney’s former girlfriend Price says she now believes that as well. “He was always into trying to talk me into having a three-way with one of his guy friends,” she said.

In her prison interview with McKinney, Vargas asked McKinney directly whether he had had any sexual encounters with men. McKinney said no.

Displaying a strong aversion to homosexual sex was a tactic McKinney tried at his trial. His lawyers developed a so-called “gay panic defense,” claiming homosexual abuse McKinney suffered as a child caused him to overreact to a sexual advance by Shepard and triggered the violent attack.

Hoping a Wyoming jury would be sympathetic to gay panic did not pay off. McKinney was found guilty and wound up with two life sentences, assuring he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison, the same sentence received by his accomplice Russell Henderson.

“It’s really hard for me to talk to Russ,” McKinney said. “To see him in this situation, knowing that I’m the one that put him here.”

But Henderson said he realizes he bears responsibility for Shepard’s death.

“For a long time I thought that his death wasn’t my fault. And then, as time has gone on, I got a better understanding to know that I could have prevented it and I could have stopped it, but I didn’t. Matthew died because I didn’t stop it,” he said.

Henderson also expresses regret and remorse for his actions that night. “I’m sorry to the Shepard family. They’ve had the hardest of all this. I’m sorry to the nation as a whole because this affected a lot of people and I wish every day I could change or fix it,” he said.

Matthew Shepard’s Death Led to Enormous Changes
Shepard’s story has been told in documentaries, television movies, and a play called “The Laramie Project.” The drama is often used in schools, as a lesson in the insidious workings of hate and prejudice, and has become one of the most produced theater pieces in America. There was also a small screen version of the drama on HBO.
Shepard’s mother has created The Matthew Shepard Foundation, dedicated to promoting tolerance and diversity, lobbying for hate-crime legislation, and assuring Matthew’s legacy will be a positive one.

You people are rabid. I don’t know how I get myself into these thing. I think I get it. It’s not that I posted the link; it’s my point of view that’s the problem. Lesson learned. – Admin

While such a police unit may be to some as political correctness and pandering run amuck, the article reveals much about the darker sides of the gay lifestyle.

Who would disagree that the murders of five human beings (albeit transgendered) should be aggressively investigated and prosecuted? The other end of the glamorous and exquisitely stylish gay life is, too often, riddled with loneliness, spiritual emptiness, emotional confusion, alcoholism, drug abuse, manipulation, thievery, violence and all kinds of other sad, tragic and evil stuff. But I’d like to see an “outed” member of a group like Exodus International (an organization that ministers to – simply put — ex-gays), join this elite squad. Think it’ll ever happen?

David, you say, “The other end of the glamorous and exquisitely stylish gay life is, too often, riddled with loneliness, spiritual emptiness, emotional confusion, alcoholism, drug abuse, manipulation, thievery, violence and all kinds of other sad, tragic and evil stuff.”

Is this any different from the maladies afflicting heterosexuals? It seems to me that you are basically saying that homosexuals are just like the rest of society. These are problems afflicting every community in this country. They are the afflictions of humanity.

“But I’d like to see an ‘outed’ member of a group like Exodus International (an organization that ministers to – simply put – ex-gays)”

Why does preaching require ‘breaking itself down into the categories of people its supposed to reach’?

Jab,
I didn’t see anything hysterical about your comment. And I agree with you. If creating a special unit helps a particularly at risk group — be it gays, the elderly, white Christians, or anyone else (within reason) — than I’m all for it. Policework is about protecting people. Period.

That fast. Don’t you have your own computer, or are you hiding behind school computers to obscure your identity? Very unmasculine. – Admin

Hummm…this is an interesting one…

I am pro-community policing for a variety of reasons…as everyone knows…law enforcement is based more on people skills then ‘force’…when I was being recruited fairly heavily by the black police union here…here very specifically stated than 9/10 out of ten in a situation a police may be involved in, it his ability to socially interact with whomever his is dealing with that leads to positive or negative outcomes…

My assumption is that it is similar in this circumstance…the basic argument for community policing is that individuals from that community have a better understanding and of that community and therefore a better ability to react and respond to situations better in that community…

In this instance…although I am not pro-homosexuality as a life style by any means…I would have to ask “why not” if the population is significant enough to warrant it…that it could potentially reduce crime…and the burden on the tax payers isn’t markedly higher…

Bly said “Makes me want to run to the hills with my family.” What is Bly afraid of? Two men kissing? What if one of his kids asks, “Daddy, why are those two men kissing?” Easy to answer that one: “Because they love each other.”

Most heterosexual couples don’t abuse each other, but a few do, and among the things that the police do is deal with and try to prevent such abuse. Most homosexual couples don’t abuse each other, but a few do. The police deal with that abuse also. In “the hills” there are also homosexual couples. You can’t escape. They are everywhere. That’s why it’s best to get along.

La Shawn wrote, “Protecting all citizens doesn’t require the police force to break itself down based on the color or sexual proclivities of the people they’re supposed to protect.” This is not about “breaking down” the police force. This is about understanding the community. In San Jose, California, a nervous policeman shot an Asian woman because he mistook a harmless vegetable peeler for a weapon. The San Jose police department realized that with more awareness of their community, that Asian woman would be alive today, and that policeman would not suffer feelings of guilt. Similarly, the Washington, D.C. police are learning more about their community. This has the potential to reduce error and save lives. This is unambiguously a good thing.

Darleen asks “A special unit, Why?” Two reasons. First, those who understand the community better can educate the rest of the force. Second, some police already specialize in areas such as domestic violence, car theft, arson, murder, etc. It is reasonable that a police force serving a city of some 700,000 with a large gay minority might have a special unit to respond to and prevent crime that affects that minority. If there is a string of car thefts in a neighborhood, the police respond by assigning a special unit. That’s what police do: they fight crime, whether the victims are hetero or otherwise.

Mark wonders why the police have no Irish liaison. The answer is that when Irish people in Washington DC are victimized by crime, no special treatment is called for. If there is domestic violence in an Irish-American household, little or no special training is called for. But, extra awareness about gays can be helpful in solving and preventing domestic violence in gay households.

Police in some cities do have special groups to deal with problems associated with certain ethnic groups. Where there are street gangs from El Salvador, it’s helpful if there is a police unit that studies the problem to gain expertise, so they can solve and prevent crime.

Violence is sadly stupid. Preventing crime is neither sad nor stupid nor freakish. It’s just what police do.

“I have yet to see an effective argument against that.”

I think people might take offense that certain communities are being protected.

The moniker of ‘gay’ has long struck me as amusing. The KGB, an intelligence agency, of the former Soviet Union used to use homosexaul behavior as a marker. The KGB did not target homosexuals for the homosexuality, per se. Rather the KGB found that the population which engaged in homosexual behavior was more apt to also engage in other risky behavior, gambling, heavy drinking, drug abuse. And that these behaviors indicated people the KGB could exploit for intelligence.

In short, the KGB, an intelligene agency, targeted homosexuals becuase it was a productive method of gathering intelligence, which was the KGB’s business.

“White communities by default are always protected in a democratic society where the ‘majority’ rules’ are you offended by that?”

of course not.

“The purpose of democracy is to support the majority while simultaneously protecting the minority”

Absolutely why I favor gay rights despite the opprobium it brings.

I don’t think two men, or two women sleeping together want special rights – they want the same rights as everyone. The difference is that they want everyone to have the right to marry “a person” rather than “a person of the opposite sex”.

That’s a somewhat absurd statement, of course, but just as the right to marry a woman probably wouldn’t be very much use to you, La Shawn, the right to marry a woman isn’t of enormous use to a gay man.

It seems to me as though there are actually two things involved with the whole “gay marriage” thing – there’s the set of rights that each spouse bestows on the other – next of kin rights, shared property etc. and there’s things that the state gives to married couples (joint filing of taxes, say).

To my mind, it is invidious to deny a competent adult the right to bestow rights over his person and property to anyone he likes. Now, at the moment, gays can just about achieve the equivalent of a marriage bond here with a rather complicated set of legal documents, which may not be valid in all states. It seems reasonable to have one simple thing that would do this for such people, in a clear and simple manner that is not open to dispute – call it marriage, civil registration, figgy pudding or what you will.

Then there is the fact that the state has chosen to treat people who are married differently from people who are not married. One would have to examine the reasons for such different treatment to decide whether one wanted to treat gay couples as “married” or not in each case.

The third thing is the sacrament that the church calls “marriage”. Clearly, no action of the state can change that.

“This should go without saying, but so often it needs to be said. Homosexuals have the same rights as the rest of us. What they actually want are special rights, to be treated differently. That’s where the so-called opprobrium comes from. That two men sleeping together should have special rights is one of the most absurd and degradingly outrageous things I’ve heard in my life.”

Until VERY recently, gays did not have the legal right to consensual sex in many states. Yet you don’t even mention this fact. I do agree that there are gays who want special rights and that this is flat-out wrong. Hate-crime legislation is a perfect example of this. Still, I wish you would at least make mention of the fact that our societies do have a history of treating gays like second class citizens–without pointing to the abuses gays suffer in the Muslim world, as though that somehow mitigates our own.

Incidentally, the thing I would like straight people to think about is this: Many straight people, though certainly not all, OBSESS over homosexuality to some degree. Go to any schoolyard or boardroom and you will hear the words “faggot”, “homo”, “pansy” etc… tossed around like water. Go into politics or read the Op-Ed pages and you will hear straight people blaming us gays for the breakup of the family – as though WE’RE the ones who legalized no fault divorce and revoked the rights of the unborn! And yet, when homosexuals make an issue out of their sexuality, either politically or through pride parades, we are condemned. We are told to stop making our sexual orientation the center of our identity. Well I’m sorry, but it is heterosexuals who have made our sexualities the center of our identity. I will gladly give up “Gay Pride” once straight people stop doling out gay shame.

Anyway, that’s kind of off-topic. I just had to get it off my chest.

La Shawn wrote,

* “You have to understand that homosexuality is repugnant to most people, regardless of what they might say to your face.”

Reply: In America, we don’t govern on the basis of “what’s repugnant to most people,” we govern on the basis of constitutional law. Also, La Shawn does not provide statistics to back up her claim, and I believe that most people now believe that what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms is their own business.

* “I’m offended that you’d even come on to my blog and offering me advice on how I should cover this topic.”

Reply: The whole point of the blog is to get people to think, engage, and debate civilly. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

* “Homosexuals get the same treatment as anyone else”

Incorrect. In Virginia, a lesbian couple had their baby taken away because they are lesbians. Gays, unlike heteros, are not permitted to marry the person they love and pass on an unlimited estate free from inheritance tax. Gays, unlike heteros, experience difficulty in having hospitals recognize their rights to speak for the medical wishes of their partners. Gays are discriminated against in many aspects of life, including adoption and employment. In fact, official federal government policy prohibits openly gay persons to serve in the military. (This prejudice has been at the expense of national security; a number of translators of Arabic were discharged on this basis.) In many ways, gays do not get the same treatment as everyone else.

* “and at one time or another we’ve all been treated as second-class citizens.”

Reply: Even if true, two wrongs don’t make a right.

* “Sadly, we all tend to treat each other badly at times, but if you think I’m going to act as though homosexuality is normal, you’re on the wrong blog.”

The question is not what is normal. The question is, are we going to endorse loving families, or are we going to act on the basis of prejudice?

* “The very idea is vile and, as I said before, repugnant.”

Nobody is forcing anyone to engage in any activity she finds vile or repugnant. Some Americans consider the practice of heterosexual oral sex to be vile and repugnant, but we don’t discriminate on the basis of preference for this activity.

* “If you can’t deal with the way people feel about it, the problem is yours, not mine.”

In other words, I’m a member of a claimed but non=existent majority and I have a right to decide what’s best for everyone else. Well, before the Civil War, Southern slave owners could have made the same comment to abolishionists.

Respectfully,

La Shawn, I didn’t “offer you advice”, I merely commented on your post, the way everyone does on blogs everywhere, and in the course of doing so I said that I personally wish you you had taken into consideration the fact that until very recently homosexuals did not have the same legal rights as heterosexuals. What was so wrong with that? If you don’t want people to express their personal sentiments on your blog then why do you have a comments section?

I’m well aware that homosexuality is considered repugnant by most people. Such opinions don’t bother me – a person’s thoughts, opinions and feelings are his own business, not mine.
What does bother me is when people treat homosexuals like we are second-class citizens because of their own personal repugnance to the act of homosexuality.

You say that we all treat each other badly. Sadly this is true. But if someone is being treated badly, doesn’t he have the right to protest, to demand that he be treated with respect, simply as a human being? If someone is being wrongly scapegoated, as gays so frequently are, doesn’t he have the right to call attention to that fact? Of course he does. Yet when gay people complain, you tell us to go to Muslim countries (presumably to be beheaded!) if we don’t like it here. It seems to me that, because you find the act of homosexuality repugnant, you would deny homosexuals – human beings – the opportunity to speak out against unfair treatment.

You’re dangerously close to being booted off this blog. I allow a comment section for my own reasons, none of which has to do with you. I allow what I want in it when I want it. That’s the rule, and it’s not subject to explanation by me or interpretation by you. – Admin

Renee asks about pedophiles. Adult-child sexual activity is a crime and there is no constitutional protection for it.

That fact has no bearing on adult-adult consensual private activities. This is not about “whatver feels good.” This is about, as President Ronald Reagan said, “Getting the government off our backs.” What could be a more illegitimate intrusion of government than discriminating against people because (ohmygosh) they like to do something with people built with the same plumbing instead of with people built that other way.

Respectfully,

Sorry, everyone. This thread is making me gag. Gotta close it.