A new piece from the Family Research Council blasts Grover Norquist (President of Americans for Tax Reform; Member of the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association) for joining the board of GOProud, an organization of conservative gay Republicans. Among the alleged sins on the GOProud agenda :
Equalize “concealed carry reciprocity” amendment with gay rights via state rights. Support guns being carried and recognized across state lines, in order to further the agenda that gay marriages legal in only a few states be recognized legally in all. (July 2009)
To FRC’s credit, they link to the endorsement article written by GOProud chairman Christopher Barron. The article says nothing about using national handgun carry license reciprocity as a tool to force states to recognize gay marriage licenses issued in other states. To the contrary, Barron’s article makes the obvious point that national handgun carry will helps gays protect themselves from violent crimes, including gay-bashing.
The FRC article would have been better if it had not made an unsupported claim about Barron’s supposed motive. Rather, the FRC could have more plausibly made the slippery slope argument that, regardless of supporters’ intent, national carry reciprocity might set a precedent for mandatory federal recognition of marriage licenses. I don’t see a strong slippery slope possibility here, but the FRC is free to have its own risk assessment.
And obviously the FRC is free to organize is policy preferences any way it wants. Personally, though, I think that federal legislation which directly protects the Second Amendment rights of all Americans is far more important than whatever tiny effect the bill might have on gay marriage. (HT: Snowflakes.)
Arkady says:
“To the contrary, Barron’s article makes the obvious point that national handgun carry will helps gays protect themselves from violent crimes, including gay-bashing.”
Yikes! Armed queers. We’re doomed.
June 23, 2010, 5:37 pm11-B.2O/B4 says:
FRC can shut up and go home IMO. If support for broad transfer of constitutional gun rights means support for the “gay agenda”, well then sign me and my VFW, Gun Club and MOPH chapter right up. This sort of self-defeating BS always makes me chuckle. It’s like when those Westboro nutjobs actually incite some (sometimes rather homophobic) Vietnam-vet bikers into defense of homosexuals. Sometimes it takes this big of a jackass to make reasonable people join forces across smaller divides.
June 23, 2010, 5:44 pmRPT says:
God, gays and guns. DK hits the trifecta.
June 23, 2010, 5:47 pmThales says:
If the Family Research [sic] Council is for it, there’s a good chance I’m against it, and vice versa. As they represent the (but only) slightly more civilized wing of the gay-bashing coalition, they indeed would have much to fear from armed gays.
June 23, 2010, 5:50 pmBrett Bellmore says:
I’m pretty sure “gay bashing” refers to speech hostile to homosexuals, not actually “bashing” them with blunt instruments. And thus it can’t constitute a violent crime, let alone one self defense with a firearm would be appropriate for.
June 23, 2010, 5:52 pmJamie Ward says:
I’m pretty sure that “gay bashing” means actual gay bashing with things like trucks and fence posts. Sexual orientation is the 2nd most popular violent hate crime in America. I’d arm myself if I were gay.
June 23, 2010, 6:16 pmDonP. says:
Matthew Shephard ring a bell?
The local Pink Pistols chapters might have a slightly different point of view on that issue as well. With a motto like “Armed Gays don’t get bashed”, I’m guess they aren’t thinking of “… but words will never break my bones” style attacks.
June 23, 2010, 6:23 pmBC says:
That’s pretty much the Platonic ideal of incorrect, right there. “Gay bashing” (or “fag bashing”) certainly includes speech hostile to homosexuals, but isn’t limited to that context, and also refers to acts of violence perpetrated upon homosexuals.
June 23, 2010, 6:31 pmdisintelligentsia says:
On a completely unrelated note, Dearborn police seem to think they have the right to simply suspend the first amendment rights of people if their speech is offensive to Muslims outside the Arab Festival in Dearborn. See Video on Powerline Blog
In Brief: Eight (!) police officers arrested three people distributing copies of the gospel of John on a public sidewalk and a fourth who was taping the incident and ordered the person to stop taping it and confiscated his camera. They were informed they could not distribute material within five blocks of the Arab festival or they would be arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
June 23, 2010, 6:35 pmBrett Bellmore says:
What can I say? Every single solitary time I can recall the term “gay bashing” being used, it was in reference to speech. If you bash somebody with club, isn’t the term “battery” more appropriate?
June 23, 2010, 6:55 pmJK says:
I think at the very least “gay bashing” implies a confrontation of some sort, and not simply saying mean things about homosexuals in general.
Wikipedia summarizes my intuitions nicely:
June 23, 2010, 7:25 pmLarryA says:
I’d think national recognition of driver’s licenses, adoption proceedings, hetro marriage licenses, and a number of other such would provide a lot more lubrication for this slippery slope.
While it’s true I can carry in 31 states with a Texas resident CHL, in doing so I have to contend with all the different state CHL regulations. And there are several states where legal firearm self-defense, or even simple possession is almost impossible for non-residents.
All the time I worked with family violence and sexual assault agencies “gay bashing” was almost always physical, the equivalent of wife beating. Most of the situations where there wasn’t a physical assault it was because the intended victim escaped, not because the perpetrators weren’t willing.
In Texas it would generally be aggravated assault. Using a club usually constitutes deadly force.
June 23, 2010, 7:30 pmThales says:
Let’s not forget that the policy preferences of the Family Research Council would if enacted likely violate a lot more of the Constitution than just the Second Amendment.
June 23, 2010, 7:49 pmptt says:
June 23, 2010, 8:13 pmSafeBetter says:
Cool man. U gonna quote Urban Dictionary regarding the meaning of “the stranger” next?
June 23, 2010, 8:49 pmDG says:
FRC is the American Christian version of the Taliban, minus the violence.
June 23, 2010, 8:58 pmTommy says:
BASH(1) BASH(1)
NAME
bash – GNU Bourne-Again SHell
SYNOPSIS
bash [options] [file]
COPYRIGHT
Bash is Copyright (C) 1989-2005 by the Free Software Foundation, Inc.
DESCRIPTION
Bash is an sh-compatible command language interpreter that executes
commands read from the standard input or from a file. Bash also incor-
porates useful features from the Korn and C shells (ksh and csh).
Bash is intended to be a conformant implementation of the Shell and
June 23, 2010, 9:01 pmUtilities portion of the IEEE POSIX specification (IEEE Standard
1003.1). Bash can be configured to be POSIX-conformant by default.
Radagast says:
Growing up in the 80s here in Australia, ‘gay bashing’ or ‘poofter bashing’ was a popular sport among certain sub cultures. It generally meant going to a ‘gay beat’ ie: public toilet and bashing / kicking gay men into unconsciousness. The bright red Doc Martin boots favored by skinheads were called kicking boots for a reason and the color was chosen for the same reason that the English army wore red coats.
June 23, 2010, 9:12 pmI wondered in the 90s if the adoption of shaved heads, doc martins and physical training by the male gay community was a combination of defensive camouflage and a self defence mind set. Certainly gay bashing is far less common now, as often gay men are in better physical shape than their would be assailants.
The only incident I’ve personally seen in the last decade of a gay man who had been severely beaten was bashed by his boyfriend.
To equate expressing distaste with homosexual practices with violent assault on homosexuals is simply wrong. I personally consider homosexuality to be a perversion of the urge to procreate, but I would not hesitate to go to the aid of a gay man being assaulted in such a manner, just as I would for any other human being.
I will note that the gay shooters I know tend to be quite proficient, probably because they come from a background where the skill may be needed.
leo marvin says:
As others have pointed out, that’s astonishingly wrong. Here‘s a too-rare example of gay bashing that ended well. (OK, it was actually transvestite bashing, but I suspect that distinction was lost on the bashers.)
June 23, 2010, 9:20 pmSimon P. says:
But isn’t the principle behind the legal recognition of same-sex marriage also of constitutional pedigree? Namely, aren’t we essentially talking about protecting privacy rights?
I mean, concealed carry reciprocity is nice and all, but it’s not something most Americans are going to take advantage of, either. If concealed carry reciprocity is “important” because it protects rights that everyone should have even if they don’t particularly want to exercise them, why wouldn’t same-sex marriage reciprocity be important for the same reason?
June 23, 2010, 9:43 pmArthur Kirkland says:
You want the Family Research Council’s cherry on your electoral sundae, you get the nuts with that, too.
Liberals and libertarians could have told this to conservatives.
June 23, 2010, 11:22 pmSteve says:
In Brett Bellmore’s world, black conservatives live in constant fear of assassination by Democrats, but gays have nothing to worry about but the occasional pejorative. What an interesting point of view.
June 24, 2010, 12:03 amLarryA says:
I’d guess, given societal attitudes, that there are also a lot fewer bashers around, and law enforcement is a lot more likely to take bashing seriously. Also, the spread of concealed carry makes self-defense against multiple assailants a possibility.
Sure, both are important issues. But David’s quote compared the effect of the law on the two issues. National reciprocity legislation will directly affect millions of concealed handgun licensees. That’s as compared to whatever slight effect the national concealed carry reciprocity law has on same-sex marriage.
June 24, 2010, 12:13 amJohn D says:
Gay bashing (earlier “queer bashing”) implies physical violence.
Verbal harassment on the basis of homosexuality (real or perceived) is “queer bating.”
June 24, 2010, 1:19 amRandy says:
The FRC is in a meltdown. When conservatives like Norquist join the gay coalition, there really is nothing left of their agenda to marginilize gays.
The FRC longed milked the anti-gay card to raise donations. Our existence paid for their huge staffs, but with the recession hitting their donor base hard, and the fact that their anti-gay agenda has been as spectacular disaster seen over the course of the last 20 years, people just can’t get too worked up about how gays will destroy civilization. So they have to up the rhetoric and see anyone as a traitor to their cause. And without the gay issue, the FRC really doesn’t have much else to talk about, or a reason to exist.
June 24, 2010, 3:43 ampublic_defender says:
The FRC temper tantrum demonstrates a way that we liberals can win more than we win now –embrace gun rights.
Let’s face it, we liberals have lost this battle. Because weak gun laws in one place just feed guns into places with strong gun laws, the only way to win it is to get strong national restrictions. And strong national restrictions just ain’t gonna happen for both political and constitutional reasons.
An otherwise liberal politician can pick up libertarian and conservative votes just by being pro-gun. Given that we liberals have lost the gun rights battle, that’s a compromise we should jump at. We gain a lot, and we give up little that we haven’t already lost.
June 24, 2010, 5:25 amBrett Bellmore says:
I donno… Maybe Brett Bellmore’s world is a relatively peaceful one, he doesn’t live surrounded by, or associate with brutal thugs, and thus the only context in which ‘gay bashing’ has come up in his world IS speech?
At any rate, I think it’s a bad idea to use the same term to refer to constitutionally protected speech AND criminal violence. Though I rather suspect it’s used that way for exactly the same reason I think it’s a bad idea; Some people LIKE being able to conflate the exercise of a constitutional right with criminal violence.
Well, it would be, wouldn’t it, working at a job like that…
Public Defender, you demonstrate pretty clearly why, though it might be a good idea for liberals to sign on to the pro-gun cause, they’re not going to. You’re not describing it as a cause you ought to sign onto because it’s right, you’re describing it as a cause which is desperately wrong, but winning. You’d be the equivalent of the Vicki French during WWII, allying with the Nazis because they were winning.
And that’s why we wouldn’t want you, though you might be convenient allies in some instances: We’d have to watch our backs 24/7, waiting for the inevitable betrayal the moment you saw a chance to successfully advancing gun control.
June 24, 2010, 6:17 amShot in the Dark » Blog Archive » Dear Family Resource Council says:
[...] have gone on record against…shall-issue concealed carry laws? A new piece from the Family Research Council blasts Grover Norquist (President of Americans for Tax [...]
June 24, 2010, 8:31 amilbob says:
Unfortunately, the FRC has slipped on its own slippery slope of opposing something that has potential to be good on the off chance that there might be some unintended negative side effect.
OTOH, I am not convinced that it is up to the federal government to legislate the exact mechanism by which states are going to be allowed to infringe the 2A. Federalism dictates that the states ought to have some say in how the amount of infringement is determined.
June 24, 2010, 9:30 amJoe T. Guest says:
Grover Norquist boosting guns & gays and the FRC is upset about it?
This is a bit reminiscent of David Allen Coe’s song, “Anita Bryant.”
June 24, 2010, 9:33 amDG says:
{The FRC is in a meltdown. When conservatives like Norquist join the gay coalition, there really is nothing left of their agenda to marginilize gays. }
Many conservatives and, especially, libertarians, in the republican party have long found the FRC to be deeply disturbing. Its an extreme rather than mainstream conservative group.
{The FRC temper tantrum demonstrates a way that we liberals can win more than we win now –embrace gun rights.}
You know, there is a principled middle ground between Brady Campaign abolitionism and NRA anti-regulation. The liberal gun control people have always concentrated on simply banning guns or making guns more difficult to get, rather than on any sensible regulation. This has led to reflexive resistance of even sensible regulation by those who enjoy their right to own firearms.
If the left would renounce the idea of firearms abolition and embrace (sincerely, not as a subterfuge) the idea of responsible gun ownership and clamping down on straw sales and other shady dealings, they would get a lot further than silly (and ineffective) assault weapons bans or pricey (and ineffective) ballistic fingerprinting. How about mandatory safety training and marksmanship practice instead?
June 24, 2010, 9:51 amThatguy says:
To quote Glenn Reynolds: “I’d be delighted to live in a country where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons.”
June 24, 2010, 9:52 amTim K. says:
And to quote myself: “I’d be delighted to live in a country where happily married traditional couples were no longer considered out of the mainstream, instead of those homosexual ass screwers”.
June 24, 2010, 10:01 amZoe Brain says:
I’m technically Intersexed, but Transsexual is close enough.
Every November 26th, we commemorate those of us who have been slain over the course of the previous year, not in robberies or accidents, but by strangers, simply because they were Trans.
This year, I choked up on number #108. I knew her personally, you see. We’ve all lost friends this way.
http://www.tgctr.org/2010/06/23/transman-bashed-at-hcc-campus
That’s what a Gay Bashing looks like.
If I lived in the USA, I’d go armed. And would make sure I kept proficient in both safety procedures, and effective use of the weapons I carried on human targets.
June 24, 2010, 10:05 amBohemond says:
Um, mythology aside, the English army adopted red coats in the mid-17th century a) because they were visible in the thick clouds of powder smoke that fogged the battlefields of the time, and b)red dyes were cheap.
June 24, 2010, 10:17 amArthur Kirkland says:
Do you attempt to worship the God of the Bible with that mouth?
June 24, 2010, 11:11 amjust saying says:
The only problem with that is that most liberals can no more bring themselves to go along with gun rights any more than they can accept that you can’t tax your way to prosperity or the Cuba does not have a better healthcare system than America. They would rather “fight the good fight” to the bitter end than accept that they are wrong.
June 24, 2010, 11:42 amMark Fletcher says:
Interesting combination of issues: gay marriage and firearms. I was just thinking that opposition to both boils down to the same thing: using the political process to prohibit other people’s behavior that you don’t approve of, even though it doesn’t harm you or anyone else. This is unfortunately a way of life in my native country of England: the knee-jerk reaction to any objectionable behavior seems to be “that should be banned”.
June 24, 2010, 12:00 pmRandy says:
Arthur, don’t bother with people like Tim. Anyone who claims that heterosexual marriage is out of the mainstream and exhibits a fixation upon anal sex can’t really be reasoned with. He has too many problems of his own, so we should pity him rather than try to debate him.
June 24, 2010, 12:00 pmMark Fletcher says:
This theory, and also the underlying implication of this statement – more guns are bad – are contradicted by a substantial amount of scientific research.
June 24, 2010, 12:07 pmMark Fletcher says:
According to the NYT, Rwanda also has superior healthcare to the US. It’s worse that a healthy person does not have “coverage” than that Rwandans die in the streets.
June 24, 2010, 12:12 pmMark Horning says:
While it’s true that your TX drivers liscence allows you to drive in 50 states, in doing so you have to contend with all the different state DMV regulations.
Rules of the road, laws, and even street markings vary from state to state.
June 24, 2010, 12:21 pmMalvolio says:
Matthew Shephard is the missing white girl of the anti-gay-bashing set. Here’s a protip: if you know the name of the only victim of a problem, and it’s a 12-year-old, fairly dubious case, there’s not a serious problem.
I believe you might mean “queer-baiting” (“bait, v.t., to intentionally annoy, torment, or threaten by constant rebukes or threats; to harass.”). Queer ‘bating is an entirely different avocation.
Yes, and if the whole red-boots-to-hide-the-blood thing had ever been tried, the skinhead would have quickly learned that blood shows as dark brown very quickly. The boot-color story is a myth and the whole poofter-bashing narrative is likely exaggerated.
June 24, 2010, 2:37 pmptt says:
Norquist had been a supporter of the Log Cabinettes for years (until he dumped them for GOProud). The schtick is getting old: prominent Republican publicly supports gay group, FRC et al. throw a hissy fit, nothing comes of prominent GOP politician’s association with the group (other than some speaking fees for him/her). Y A W N
Hey, if you think it’s a bad idea to confuse the two, then go with the dictionary and use the term to refer to physical violence.
I’ve never heard of innocent bystanders being injured in a drive-by gay wedding.
June 24, 2010, 2:39 pmptt says:
You have a point. Matthew Sheppard was the only one of dozens of gay people killed in the last fifteen or so years who was crucified. Obviously the anti-gay-crucifixion crowd is engaging in hyperbole.
And a note about your logic in raising the “missing white girl” analogy. The point of the “missing white girl” phenomenon is that society only pays attention to a few victims while most go unpublicized, just as missing, just as dead. In other words, the problem is much larger than it would appear based on what people perceive through the press.
You might want to rethink your argument or, better yet, your lack of concern.
June 24, 2010, 2:51 pmKatahdin says:
The difference being, if I’m on a cross country trip and make a right-on-red in a state that doesn’t allow them, I pay a $100 ticket. If I happen to violate some obscure gun law (in MT, alone among the states, you can’t carry in a bank lobby), I’m likely looking at a felony.
June 24, 2010, 3:57 pmDG says:
{Arthur, don’t bother with people like Tim. Anyone who claims that heterosexual marriage is out of the mainstream and exhibits a fixation upon anal sex can’t really be reasoned with. He has too many problems of his own, so we should pity him rather than try to debate him.}
Randy, does it every bother you that guys like Tim are clearly deeply closeted and repressed? Unless he’s a huge troll, he is so very clearly gay. And self-hating.
June 24, 2010, 4:45 pmwhit says:
“Brett Bellmore: At any rate, I think it’s a bad idea to use the same term to refer to constitutionally protected speech AND criminal violence. Though I rather suspect it’s used that way for exactly the same reason I think it’s a bad idea; Some people LIKE being able to conflate the exercise of a constitutional right with criminal violence. ”
this is frequently done in domestic violence as well. iow, the “culture” of domestic violence victim advocates, etc. promote the idea that “dating violence” and “domestic violence” includes name calling, belittling, “controlling behavior” etc. etc.
most people correctly associate the term domestic VIOLENCE with stuff like punching, kicking, etc. not calling somebody a name, or stuff like that.
i guess you could call it “defining deviancy up”. you can inflate domestic violence statistics by referring to name calling or “controlling behavior” as domestic VIOLENCE in the same way you can inflate rape statistics by referring to cases where a woman “felt pressured” into agreeing to sex etc. as RAPE.
i am pro gay rights and pro gay marriage, but i think a bright line should be drawn between NAME CALLING and actual violence.
fwiw, even our police dispatchers fall into this trap. i can’t tell you how many times they dispatch us to “verbal DV’s” (DV stands for domestic violence) after somebody calls because their neighbors are ARGUING. that’s a DOMESTIC incident, it is not domestic VIOLENCE.
many agencies are even required to document POLICE REPORTS on “verbal” domestics which imo is a wrongful collection of non-criminal intelligence, whether or not its technically legal for them to do so.
June 24, 2010, 4:48 pmJohn D says:
Some years ago the Advocate did a story they called “A Month of Hate.” They chose August of the previous year. For each day of that month, they were able to document either an anti-gay assault or murder. It was noted in the article that August wasn’t a particularly special month, either. As a news organization, they tracked this stuff so they had it at hand.
2009 had three murders of gay men, two of bisexual men, in which their sexual orientation was a motivating factor for the assailant. There were six rapes. 229 incidences of aggravated assault against gay or bisexual victims. 493 incidences of simple assault. 412 incidences of intimidation. Five other incidences were under “other.”
Matthew Sheppard became a high-profile story. That doesn’t mean his story was unique. The statistics show the contrary.
June 24, 2010, 7:43 pmRandy says:
DG: “Randy, does it every bother you that guys like Tim are clearly deeply closeted and repressed? Unless he’s a huge troll, he is so very clearly gay. And self-hating”
Well, we really don’t know that, do we? I do know people who are very anti-gay who are also straight, so I wouldn’t lump all of them as self-loathing gays.
It’s clear enough to me that anyone who is fixated upon male-to-male anal sex probably has some issues he should deal with. That you can’t reason with such people is proved to me over and over. That’s about as far as I’m willing to go on this matter, I’m afraid.
June 25, 2010, 12:19 pmGayCynic says:
Hate to disillusion you but the verbal unpleasantry you refer to is, at the very most, “bashing-lite”. Real gay-bashing involves morgues and hospitals, application of blunt and pointy objects, and occasionally high-velocity projectiles.
In short, it’s not for funsies – and I’ve had enough friends fall victim to it that I’m amazingly unamused by the entire notion.
At 6’2″, reasonably masculine, and 275lbs of crankiness…I’m not, shall we say, the most attractive target for these violent knuckle-draggers, as all but the very craziest tend to go after less apparently dangerous prey. But…too many of my friends don’t radiate “this is a really bad idea” in sufficiently crude wavelengths to deter such mayhem.
So yeah. I’ve held a CPL for most of the last 25 years, and prefer .45acp as a carry round (in a Para, given a choice…or a double-stack Glock if I must). I’m not the only fey sort that’s come to such conclusions, and I am saddened that more haven’t – having noticed that the number of folks randomly beating up cops, Hells Angels, and Crips are just vanishingly small, I grow tired of my communities self-imposed defenselessness (thought there are, like me, rather significant exceptions).
If a couple of young thuggish bigots with 2×4′s want to play…at my age, I’m not going to play fair. Depending on locale and generosity…I’ll take necessary action to ensure a satisfactory level of non-aggression.
GC
June 25, 2010, 8:02 pmcls says:
As one who did a stint working at a major gay newspaper in one of the largest cities in the country I can say we repeatedly did stories about gay bashings. As far as I remember none of them had anything to do with comments or just speech. We wrote about violent, vicious assaults, sometimes engaged in by the police but usually done by young, straight males, or allegedly straight males.
As for Matthew Shepherd being the only victim of gay bashing: Jose Sucuzhanay was beat to death in New York City, in 2009, with an aluminum bat because the attackers thought he was gay. He wasn’t but even straights get gay based.
Earlier this year Phillip Nelson, 24, was beat by three men who called him a faggot and who had vandalize his apartment with graffiti saying “fag.” He lived, but you don’t have to die to be gay bashed.
Craig Cohen, 47, left a diner after eating. Four men attacked him putting him in a coma. He died six months later. That was last year. A military man attacked a group of gay men in New York last year and assaulted one of them. He bragged: “Go ahead, try telling the cops. They don’t do anything and you can’t touch me.”
The US territory of Puerto Rico recently had an attack on a gay teen who was decapitated by his attacker. Anyone who says Matthew Shepherd was the sum of gay bashing in America is either dishonest or incredibly ignorant—perhaps both.
June 25, 2010, 10:23 pmFamily Research Council update | theConstitutional.org says:
[...] partly in response to my VC post yesterday, the Family Research Council has corrected its prior claim that the conservative pro-gay group [...]
June 26, 2010, 4:18 am