Why "I Didn't Mean It" is Utter Bullshit
Recently, the Tea Party removed Tim Ravndal the president of the "Big Sky Tea Party Association" for incendiary comments he made about gay people on Facebook. Tim Ravndal, along with his evil friend Dennis Scranton, casually invoked Matthew Shepard's horrific crucifixion in response to a debate about the status of gay couples in Montana seeking equal protection under the law. Here is a snapshot of the conversation in question:
Here's the text, if the picture doesn't work for you:
Tim Ravndal: "Marriage is between a man and a woman period! By giving rights to those otherwise would be a violation of the constitution and my own rights"
Keith Baker: "How dare you exercise your First Amendment Rights?"
Dennis Scranton: "I think fruits are decorative. Hang up where they can be seen and appreciated. Call Wyoming for display instructions."
Tim Ravndal: "@Kieth, OOPS I forgot this aint(sic) America no more! @ Dennis, Where can I get that Wyoming printed instruction manual?"
Dennis Scranton: "Should be able to get info Gazette archives. Maybe even an illustration. Go back a bit over ten years."
In case you don't get the reference, or even if you do, here's a breakdown of what these men are really saying.
Dennis Scranton thinks "fruits" are "decorative", and we should hang them up the way they do in Wyoming. You know, like they did with this boy:
Who was brutally beaten by two other boys, and then tied up to this fence post:
And left hanging, alive, for eighteen hours until he was found by police and taken to a hospital.
Though he was finally found, Matthew Shepard did not survive long enough to see the trial of his attackers. His memory has become something of a focus point both GLBT activists and hate groups like the Westboro Baptist Church, who really came to prominence protesting Shepard's funeral and his attackers' trial.
He suffered, literally crucified for who he was. His story is a reminder of the brutality that human beings are capable of, and the lengths to which people will allow their hatred to carry them.
Tim Ravndal believes this is the best way to treat homosexuals, and Dennis Scranton wants illustrated instructions on how best to do it. That is the America these men want to "return to", the one where it's okay to torture and crucify gays, much less allow them to marry. This is the real fight: not simply equality, but survival, the real right to life, no mere fucking political slogan but an actual, visceral right for which every person has to struggle against overwhelming odds to keep, and these men would gladly take it away from anyone whose lives and actions they don't personally condone according to their theocratic leanings.
Ravndal later tried to pull a classic, cowardly Right-wing not-really apology for the comments, claiming he "never made the connection". Obviously, he thought the subject had changed, and instead of hanging gay people, he was referring to the traditional Wyoming Banana Hanging Festival. Either that, or he isn't quite courageous enough to outright state what he believes, which is sort of obvious considering how he and his friends couched their language.
See, if you don't actually say "I hate gay people and condone violence against them", you don't have to admit that you hate gay people and condone violence against them. It's a thing that happens, certainly, and you can make all the smug references you want, but no one can call you on it because you didn't really say it, right? After all, it's not like you personally want to commit torture; you just think it's understandable if someone else can't stand the sight of all those uppity faggots, walking around in broad daylight like they have the right to be alive, and now demanding to be treated like your equal. Those poor boys, all they did was beat up a faggot, one who had the audacity to hit on them! Surely, they don't deserve such harsh treatment. They've been through a lot.
It's been ten years since Matthew Shepard's murder, and in a way it's good that Ravndal brought it up. Sometimes it's hard to remember that sodomy is still a criminal act in several places in the country, and it wasn't until 2003 that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the protection of privacy, and hate crime legislation only covered gender and sexual orientation beginning in 2007. These are not changes supported by the Right, who, for all their screaming and crying about freedom and the rights of individuals, do not actually support freedom and individuality; merely the freedom to be Christian in a Christian theocracy, with the right as an individual to brutalize anyone deemed threatening to their "way of life". That way of life does not include freedom of religion, of choice, or identity or of life.
Matthew Shepard's death meant something to me. When I found out what happened, when I saw the brutality, it affected me very deeply even though we'd never met, as deeply as Columbine, or 9/11, or Katrina. It told me that there is no safety in America, that freedom truly isn't free, and that if I was going to live true to myself, I was going to have to fight for it. I could have been that boy; I could still be that boy. So could many of my friends. GLBT people are still attacked all the time for who they are, for who they fuck, and for who they love. They are treated as less than human, and it's not just about marriage, it's about survival balanced against truth, trust against cowardice. The most important lessons I learned from Matthew Shepard are: never trust a person who will speak hatred, then pretend that's not what they meant; never turn your back on someone who justifies violence with religion; never back down from the fight for my own existence; everyone is dangerous, including me.
So I say, over and over again, fuck you, Ravndal, and everyone like you. You are a coward and a liar, and it doesn't really matter if you didn't mean it. You may not condone "violence against individuals", but you still long for a day when gay people don't matter. You may or may not represent the Tea Party, but you are absolutely the heart of everything wrong with the violent Right, and I will spend my life pointing out how close we are to letting murderers like you (yes, murderers, vicariously and with gusto) take away what little progress we've gained in the last twelve years.
Apology unaccepted.
Here's the text, if the picture doesn't work for you:
Tim Ravndal: "Marriage is between a man and a woman period! By giving rights to those otherwise would be a violation of the constitution and my own rights"
Keith Baker: "How dare you exercise your First Amendment Rights?"
Dennis Scranton: "I think fruits are decorative. Hang up where they can be seen and appreciated. Call Wyoming for display instructions."
Tim Ravndal: "@Kieth, OOPS I forgot this aint(sic) America no more! @ Dennis, Where can I get that Wyoming printed instruction manual?"
Dennis Scranton: "Should be able to get info Gazette archives. Maybe even an illustration. Go back a bit over ten years."
In case you don't get the reference, or even if you do, here's a breakdown of what these men are really saying.
Dennis Scranton thinks "fruits" are "decorative", and we should hang them up the way they do in Wyoming. You know, like they did with this boy:
Who was brutally beaten by two other boys, and then tied up to this fence post:
And left hanging, alive, for eighteen hours until he was found by police and taken to a hospital.
Though he was finally found, Matthew Shepard did not survive long enough to see the trial of his attackers. His memory has become something of a focus point both GLBT activists and hate groups like the Westboro Baptist Church, who really came to prominence protesting Shepard's funeral and his attackers' trial.
He suffered, literally crucified for who he was. His story is a reminder of the brutality that human beings are capable of, and the lengths to which people will allow their hatred to carry them.
Tim Ravndal believes this is the best way to treat homosexuals, and Dennis Scranton wants illustrated instructions on how best to do it. That is the America these men want to "return to", the one where it's okay to torture and crucify gays, much less allow them to marry. This is the real fight: not simply equality, but survival, the real right to life, no mere fucking political slogan but an actual, visceral right for which every person has to struggle against overwhelming odds to keep, and these men would gladly take it away from anyone whose lives and actions they don't personally condone according to their theocratic leanings.
Ravndal later tried to pull a classic, cowardly Right-wing not-really apology for the comments, claiming he "never made the connection". Obviously, he thought the subject had changed, and instead of hanging gay people, he was referring to the traditional Wyoming Banana Hanging Festival. Either that, or he isn't quite courageous enough to outright state what he believes, which is sort of obvious considering how he and his friends couched their language.
See, if you don't actually say "I hate gay people and condone violence against them", you don't have to admit that you hate gay people and condone violence against them. It's a thing that happens, certainly, and you can make all the smug references you want, but no one can call you on it because you didn't really say it, right? After all, it's not like you personally want to commit torture; you just think it's understandable if someone else can't stand the sight of all those uppity faggots, walking around in broad daylight like they have the right to be alive, and now demanding to be treated like your equal. Those poor boys, all they did was beat up a faggot, one who had the audacity to hit on them! Surely, they don't deserve such harsh treatment. They've been through a lot.
It's been ten years since Matthew Shepard's murder, and in a way it's good that Ravndal brought it up. Sometimes it's hard to remember that sodomy is still a criminal act in several places in the country, and it wasn't until 2003 that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the protection of privacy, and hate crime legislation only covered gender and sexual orientation beginning in 2007. These are not changes supported by the Right, who, for all their screaming and crying about freedom and the rights of individuals, do not actually support freedom and individuality; merely the freedom to be Christian in a Christian theocracy, with the right as an individual to brutalize anyone deemed threatening to their "way of life". That way of life does not include freedom of religion, of choice, or identity or of life.
Matthew Shepard's death meant something to me. When I found out what happened, when I saw the brutality, it affected me very deeply even though we'd never met, as deeply as Columbine, or 9/11, or Katrina. It told me that there is no safety in America, that freedom truly isn't free, and that if I was going to live true to myself, I was going to have to fight for it. I could have been that boy; I could still be that boy. So could many of my friends. GLBT people are still attacked all the time for who they are, for who they fuck, and for who they love. They are treated as less than human, and it's not just about marriage, it's about survival balanced against truth, trust against cowardice. The most important lessons I learned from Matthew Shepard are: never trust a person who will speak hatred, then pretend that's not what they meant; never turn your back on someone who justifies violence with religion; never back down from the fight for my own existence; everyone is dangerous, including me.
So I say, over and over again, fuck you, Ravndal, and everyone like you. You are a coward and a liar, and it doesn't really matter if you didn't mean it. You may not condone "violence against individuals", but you still long for a day when gay people don't matter. You may or may not represent the Tea Party, but you are absolutely the heart of everything wrong with the violent Right, and I will spend my life pointing out how close we are to letting murderers like you (yes, murderers, vicariously and with gusto) take away what little progress we've gained in the last twelve years.
Apology unaccepted.