Instantman has been running several long posts on the Pink Pistols (a gay gun-rights group), and their interactions with the NRA. It's interesting to read the whole story, but what struck me about it was the intolerance of the gay and liberal community.

From one of Glenn's correspondents:

I would say there is a consistent bias in the media, both gay and straight but particularly gay, in the way that gun owners and their views on GLBT people are represented. But I don't think it's so much a reporting bias as an editorial bias. Now Steve writes an article on the NRA convention. It says what happened, calls out a speaker who was inappropriate, and talks about the Pink Pistols, giving fair coverage to the point that most gun owners are not homophobic. Steve has done his job. But PlanetOut has never before covered the Pink Pistols in any other context. We've been the fastest growing gay sporting organization in the country, probably the fastest growing gay group, and we've had a pitched legislative battle with a lesbian senator whose most notable achievement was to amend gun- control legislation to allow arbitrary discrimination against anyone, including gay people, and particularly women and the poor (and who was subsequently endorsed by HRC). During that time, news media from the Wall Street Journal to the Washington Blade covered the Pink Pistols, but PlanetOut was nowhere to be seen. Hmm.

Continuing along that line, I note that I never read an article in the gay media like "Gay gun owners say NRA members pretty friendly to them". We got positive coverage in Gun Week and Guns & Ammo. Does PlanetOut report that? "Gay gun group praised in Guns & Ammo" is just as important a headline as "At NRA gathering, speakers ridicule gays", isn't it? Everyone expects Schlussel to mouth off, so is that really bigger news than a gay-friendly gun group getting great coverage in gun media and being invited to speak at lots of pro-gun events, which many gay people claim is impossible?

I found it interesting (but no longer surprising, particularly after the Dr. Laura deal), that the gun rights people seem to be much more tolerant of gays, than the gay and liberal community is of gun activists. It really shatters the stereotypes, and further highlights the hypocrisy of their ongoing demands for "acceptance" and "tolerance." Don't expect to read about this in the mainstream press...

"... than the gay and liberal community is..."

I hope you're not suggesting that all gays are liberal, or all gays adhere to a liberal agenda. Not all women ascribe to NOW, although the media tends to filter news through a liberal lens.

Andrew Sullivan is not alone:

http://www.indegayforum.org/index.shtml

Of course not. But the "gay community" tends to be. Just ask Andrew.

It's human nature to want to be admired. One of the ways to be admired is to have a higher moral position than others.

I live in Columbus, Ohio and used to work for the police department here. The policy is to aggresively pursue those guilty of violent crime no matter who the victim is. It must work since there's a thriving gay community here, with many same sex couples buying houses and settling down without even a comment from their neighbors.

But there's always a blowhard somewhere shrieking how the police are prejudiced. I think it's due to the good feeling people get when they think that they're holding the line against oppression.

As a firearm instructor I welcome anyone who wants to take the responsibility to defend themselves (unless they're a convicted felon). By defending themselves the potential victim is keeping the attacker away from every helpless person the felon would come in contact with later, some of whom might even be gay people. By portraying gun proponents as hostile to gays they might feel self-righteous, but they're ultimately doing a disservice to their own people.

James

But see the New Republic, "Guns and Poses" where those jerks claim La Pierre is a threat to our collecticve freedom and a third rate bully and moron. That's an awful suspicious term, collective freedom, sounds pretty Marxist to me!

For years I have maintained that the gun owners should take a page from the play book of the gays.
I work in an office environment where gun owners are a close-knit, tight-lipped community amongst ourselves, reluctant to speak out on issues because of the anti-gun viewpoints held by many of our coworkers. We, as a group, have allowed the media to caricature us as unshaven, beer-guzzling, overweight white guys carrying automatic weapons to shoot defenseless deer. Not so. Most of us are mainstream, responsible citizens. The only difference is that we support the Second Amendment. So why are we ashamed of this. We need to "come out of the closet" and let ourselves be counted, putting a face of normalcy on gun-ownership. In states like Ohio (where I live by the way), which oppose concealed carry, but permit open carry, Carry!! Let the public become accustomed to seeing honest people carrying openly. This might force reticent legislators in Ohio to finally pass a CCW law.
So hey gun owners, Come out of the closet!!

If the 'militia' interpretation of the Second Amendment is right, it seems to establish an individual right to bear arms in the context of an organized militia.
So why doesn't some openly gay person try to join a state militia and when turned down for being gay, sue on the grounds that he has a right to join under the Second Amendment?
Might be fun.

You overlook the fact, I fear, that non-heterosexuals like myself can only be conservative--at least, traditionally conservative, as in pro-Religious Right conservative--if they're self-hating. Is there any reason a psychologically healthy person would want to support a political movement that identifies himself/herself as psychologically ill, a criminal, an innate sinner and (as Falwell and Robertson stated, and others continue to echo) responsible for the most appalling crimes, like hyperterrorism and child murder?

This is changing, mind. Andrew Sullivan is a perfect example of this--he's conservative, he's gay, and he proves there doesn't have to be a contradiction between the two. Hopefully, mainstream conservatism will move away from its homophobia, and accept the idea that people don't have to be heterosexual to be moral. Until it does, don't expect us to be conservatives.

And if I can expand on Mr. Simberg's point:

"It really shatters the stereotypes, and further highlights the hypocrisy of their ongoing demands for 'acceptance' and 'tolerance.'"

Well, not necessarily.

The problem with Dr. Laura was that she was saying non-heterosexuals were psychologically ill by virtue of their sexuality, and that non-heterosexuality was wrong. Well, it isn't a manifestation of psychological illness (though fear of persecution can definitely cause psychological problems), and it definitely isn't wrong.

What if, say, Dr. Laura converted to a particularly zealous brand of Christianity, and she stated that Jews were psychologically ill by virtue of their religion and that Judaism was wrong? I daresay that the vast majority of American Christians (never mind American Jews) would find these views abhorrent, and institute a similar boycott of her show.

We don't have full civil equality. In 20 states of the union, non-heterosexual intercourse is illegal; even in western Europe, non-heterosexual couples can't get married like their homosexual counterparts; coming out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual (I'm bi, incidentally) is still a terrifying process filled with fears that you will be rejected by everyone you know simply because of an innate characteristic that you can't help and that you can't repress. Some degree of prickliness is, IMHO, entirely warranted.

I'm not expecting anybody to be a conservative, and this post had nothing to do with conservatives. I'm not a conservative.

My only point was that gun-rightists seem to be generally more tolerant of gays, than gays and liberals are of gun-rightists. (Hint, not all people who support the individual right to bear arms are conservative.)

Which is a cool point. I'm temperamentally somewhat more conservative than I'm liberal, I think, though given my sexuality I don't think i can do that.

I think your argument is interesting, though I'm not sure. How well accepted are the Pink Pistols and like movements inside the gun community? The Log Cabin Republicans are in the Republican Party, after all, but that doesn't mean that the Republican Party as a whole is enthusiastically or even passively pro-gay rights. I readily agree that there's definitely potential; I'm not sure that the reality matches up with this potential, put it that way.

I do think that comparisons between the plight of non-hets and gunowners are vastly overblown. As censorious as some anti-gun advocates are, well, the plight of gunowners really doesn't compare IMHO save in the kind of worst-case scenario we've been emerging from. I wouldn't argue that the two situations are so quantitatively different as to be qualitatively different, but it comes close to the dividing line.

Irregardless of these points, it got me thinking. Which is the point of a good blog, after all. Congrats!

Oh, and apologies if I was a bit testy, for being testy.

Randy: Read Tammy Bruce's take on Dr. Laura in her book "The New Thought Police". She is nowhere near as homophobic as the press and some gay rights activists made her out to be.

Timothy: Tell your coworkers that my deer hunting crew no longer makes beer runs, we make Pepsi runs. We shoot straighter that way. Oh, and tell them that if we were really overweight we couldn't drag a buck out of the bottom of a canyon.

General: Yep, it's true, most gun owners, most conservatives, even most religious people really don't give a rat's patoot what you do in your own home.

"How well accepted are the Pink Pistols and like movements inside the gun community?"

Not being a member of the "gun community," (I'm just someone who thinks that the right to bear arms is really, really important, though I don't own a gun) I couldn't say. One perspective can be gained by reading the posts on Professor Reynolds' site.

"I do think that comparisons between the plight of non-hets and gunowners are vastly overblown."

If you mean that no one has been lynched because they favor the Second Amendment, point taken. But I'm not sure that that point is relevant to my point, which is that media coverage is extremely biased against Second-Amendment activists.

When people are imprisoned or deprived of their weapons for minor infractions of unconstitutional gun laws, there is very little outrage, or even reportage. When a Matthew Shepard is murdered, it somehow becomes front-page grist all over the country, though hundreds are murdered in this country every day. While I deplore every murder, I equally deplore the notion of "hate crimes," which are really simply thought crimes.

Matthew Shepard's murderers were punished, as are all murderers in that jurisdiction (as were the murderers of James Byrd in Texas, because, apparently, he was black). But the (liberal) media chose to make a political point beyond that, granting special rights to homosexuals or other minorities--it's apparently even worse to murder them than hets.

Rand, it goes even beyond just "worse to murder them". Within a year of Matthew Shepard's murder, a boy was raped, tortured, and murdered by two homosexuals (in Texas, as I recall). This had nearly no national coverage even though the Shepard case was still on the front pages. Same for the killer who specifically targeted whites, about whom Clinton said "he has issues" - the case simply disappeared.I have yet to see a "hate crime" law which was not differentially applied (see the University of Colorado Hillel for a recent example).

The James Byrd case itself demonstrates the utter nonsense of hate crime laws - what would we give them, "Death plus ten years"? Yet we all recall the NAACP using it against George Bush despite the organization's opposition to the death penalty.

It's late, so just one more comment on gun-law victims: for years it has been common practice in New York to jail people who defend themselves with firearms, while allowing their attackers to deal away the gun charges. After all, the victim committed no other crime to consider for a plea bargain. This may not be a true lynching but it's in the same zip code. 'Nuff said.

Oh, God. Not Jesse Dirkhising.

Yes, he was raped, tortured, and murdered by two gay guys. Of course it was horrible; of course the criminals responsible should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, and hopefully they have been.

I fail to see, though, what relevance this has to gay rights. If we're going to be judging each other's sexual community by our most deviant members, well, I'll raise you a Ted Bundy.

I'm skeptical about hate crimes legislation myself. I do think this legislation does need to be applied uniformly, to people of all groups, if it needs to exist at all. It's just, well, law enforcement has too often in the past neglected to do anything if members of particular groups are assaulted. I'd happily get rid of hate crimes legislation, everywhere, if I could assured that everyone would receive the same protection and the same justice.

Special rights? I see how it could be viewed as that. Think of it as overcompensation. It's important to emphasize that me and most other people who fall in those groups singled out for protection would happily get rid of hate crimes laws if we could just be assured of legal protection.

And yes, while I agree that punishing people for technical violations of gun laws is wrong--particularly if they lack a criminal record--I'm not sure how that compares with Matthew Shepard's torture and murder. At least the wrongly imprisoned get a chance to live off of life support and with an intact brain stem.

And yes, I think it's appalling that people who defend themselves with guns get unjustly punished even as their attackers escape their just punishment.

Jesse Durkhising has no relevance to gay rights. What he has relevance to is media bias, which is what this thread has been (always) about.

If you go back and read the original post (and all of the comments, yet again) you may find that you are not as far apart from them (and me) as you might have (reflexively) believed.

Randy: Rand made my point. I will only add that people have every right to demand equal protection. But they also must be held to it (isn't that the whole point?) American Jews rightly (and LOUDLY) condemned the two JDL terrorists who plotted to blow up a mosque. Compare this with the apologists for Palestinian terrorists, IRA terrorists, even Mumia.

The reason for bringing up the comparison between Shepard and Dirkhising (thanks for reminding me of his name - but it makes part of the argument about media coverage) is that the gay community should have condemned it just as loudly if only because it gives ammunition to bigots. Burying the case does not make it go away, but refusal to condemn it becomes tacit approval in some eyes.

"Special Rights"? "Overcompensation"? No, it has to be the SAME rights. It is obviously right that an individual should get compensation from a perpetrator, but "overcompensation" generally means that non-victims are collecting the compensation and generally from non-perpetrators. And non-perpetrators will begin to resent it.

I really don't see why all non-hets, and all gay-rights organizations, should be held collectively responsible for the horrible crime inflicted upon Jesse Dirkhising. We don't go out raping and murdering children, you know, I'd hope even homophobes would recognize this basic fact.

Should Jews go around protesting that they don't go out and hunt little boys to mix their blood with their matzoh?

I refuse to dignify any blood libel with a defense.

And as for hate crimes laws ... yes, I want equal protection. The sad thing is that as laws are currently structured, and given the attitudes which exist, I can't be guaranteed that. It's an awkward set of bandages, and I'd like to get rid of them as soon as they can be gotten rid of, and for them to be used more fairly, but for the time being I'll keep them.

"I really don't see why all non-hets, and all gay-rights organizations, should be held collectively responsible for the horrible crime inflicted upon Jesse Dirkhising."

Did I say they should? I must have missed that post. You seem to be making some very bizarre assumptions about me (I'm conservative, I'm homophobic, etc.), for which there is no basis in anything I've written.

I was referring to the above post of Ken Summers:

"The reason for bringing up the comparison between Shepard and Dirkhising (thanks for reminding me of his name - but it makes part of the argument about media coverage) is that the gay community should have condemned it just as loudly if only because it gives ammunition to bigots. Burying the case does not make it go away, but refusal to condemn it becomes tacit approval in some eyes."

I just really don't see why I have to. The two animals who horribly murdered Dirkhising would have done that to anyone; they're no more representative of the gay community than Ted Bundy was representative of the gay community. Why should I, or mainstream gay organizations, have to denounce that? Sex killers are, by their very nature, massively dysfunctional. They are as clearly unrelated with the vast majority of gays and the gay rights movement as, well, the Branch Dravidians were with fundamentalist Christianity. Falwell has his faults, but no one seriously suspects that he wants to marry a dozen different women and sexually abuse young girls as is his right as the Messiah in pre-apocalyptic times.

I'm sorry that I wrote my post so carelessly as to accuse you two gentlemen, Mr. Simberg and Mr. Summers, of believing that horrible thing. It's just--well, I hate stereotypes about non-hets like myself, particularly stereotypes that are so insanely vicious and inaccurate. All I want to do with children is to be the best role model I possibly can for them, and one day--why not?--become a father. I'd never do anything to hurt a child, and I'm very hurt by people who suggest that I'm prone to do that by my very nature. I honestly don't see why the murder of Jesse Dirkhising has to be recognized as anything but a horrible crime, fundamentally no different from a heterosexual sex killing.

And as for Matthew Shepad ... that scared so many people, inside and outside the closet, largely because it reflected the anti-gay biases still extant in society. Only a day after the assault, one of the big anti-gay religious right foundations held a press conference wherein it proclaimed that non-heteroseuxals would never go to heaven. Words have consequences; that press conference proved it. And that the killers tried to defend themselves by claiming--as we now know, falsely--that Shepard sexually approached them is further proof: If it had been a woman who'd made an unwanted sexual advance towards them, would she have been kidnapped, robbed, and have her skull beaten in with a gun butt before she was left out in a freezing winter? And the horrible thing was that if the judge didn't disallow that defense as innately ridiculous, those animals might well have gotten off. It happened before, after all.

And back to the topic at the beginning of this blog. Eliminating petty bigotry is good, whether anti-gay or anti-gun. I do think that it's good that gay rights have progressed to the point where people can be openly non-heterosexual in areas of society traditionally hostile to them; I'm a fervent assimilationist. The more power to the Pink Pistols, and here's hoping that we all get to march towards equality.

Randy, I also apologize if it sounded like something I didn't mean. I understand your point about Shepard; I don't at all mean to tag all gays with it. My only point is essentially the same as yours: I don't like all hets being branded as potential bashers without evidence (or potential rapists, racists, pick a group).

And for the record, I dislike ACT-UP for their actions, but I support gay marriage and have no problem with gay adoptions (to be even more specific, I voted against Prop 22 or whichever number it was; unfortunately, I ended up on the losing side of that one).

So if you check back to this post (I know I'm a few days late), I hope you do join the Pink Pistols. More power to 'em!