Here’s a fascinating case study of differing reactions to the appalling shooting at the Family Research Council’s offices in Washington DC. Atheist, secular and pro-equality groups and individuals were unequivocal in condemning the attack and all instances of politically motivated violence. You’ve already seen Wayne Besen’s statement on it. Here’s the Secular Coalition for America:
“While we disagree with the Family Research Council on nearly every issue, the debate surrounding the role of religion in the public sphere should be fought with reason and logic, not guns,” said Edwina Rogers, Executive Director. “We absolutely condemn this sort of senseless violence.”
Rogers said that the thoughts of the Secular Coalition are with the security guard who was shot. The organization wishes him a speedy recovery and is glad that security guards were able to prevent further harm.
And American Atheists:
American Atheists is saddened to learn about the shooting at the Family Research Council today. Our thoughts are with the security officer who was injured and the other employees who were traumatized.
American Atheists never advocate violence as an answer to disagreements, even with those who believe differently than our members.
A group of 23 LGBT groups issued this statement:
We were saddened to hear news of the shooting this morning at the offices of the Family Research Council. Our hearts go out to the shooting victim, his family, and his co-workers.
The motivation and circumstances behind today’s tragedy are still unknown, but regardless of what emerges as the reason for this shooting, we utterly reject and condemn such violence. We wish for a swift and complete recovery for the victim of this terrible incident.
Now let’s contrast that with some of the comments at Fox Nation, which Charles Johnson has preserved before they’re deleted:
Out of work OWS ho mo. The DNC convention might be a good place for a mass attack…
It is past time for America to declare war against these deranged, DOPE HEAD leftist loons….
Be prepared the civil war has begun….the left will go nuclear when Obama loses…blacks will find an excuse to riot…homo’s will become more militant, unions will bully and intimidate and act like thugs Its coming be prepared to defend and protect your family…
Obama’s organization is creating a campaign of terror against American citizens so that Obama will appear “justified” when he deploys his “Department of Homeland Security”—-which has purchased a BILLION ROUNDS of ammunition in the last year—-to disarm American citizens…
this is just a practice run for Obama, he’s getting a feel for which way to cause the national emergency. I still say he’s planning a failed assination attempt on himself, and will declare the elections off. DHS has been stockpiling ammo for months. Travel with papers is headed our way . martial law !!!…
you better find a gød to pray to, that there isn’t a “civil” war in 2016, or any time in your future, because You’re gonna be primary targets, and we’re gonna be able to find you.
Now I know it’s not entirely analogous to compare statements from organizations to comments on a website. But do you know of any prominent liberal site where the commenters are supporting the shooting or spewing crazy conspiracies about it?
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Gregory in Seattle
August 20, 2012 at 9:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Therein lies the clearest distinction possible between humanism and theism.
matty1
August 20, 2012 at 9:47 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So much crazy it’s hard to know where to start but since when was the DHS Obama’s department. Did they not notice he inherited it from another president, one I would guess a lot of those commenters supported?
d cwilson
August 20, 2012 at 9:50 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
FoxNation: Where Fox puts the commentators that are too embarrassing for foxnews.com.
timgueguen
August 20, 2012 at 10:07 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Of course if an article appeared reporting that Obama was cutting back on spending at DHS some of the same idiots would be screaming that it was a plot by “Secret Muslim Obama” to leave America vulnerable to attack.
coragyps
August 20, 2012 at 10:10 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You mean…..you mean Obama’s Evil Gay Commie Jackbooted Thugs (TM) didn’t already gather up all of our Sacred Firearms in 2009? I was sure that I heard that was part of their agenda back then!
eric
August 20, 2012 at 10:15 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Teabaggers demanding tighter control of the border while complaining about Customs and Border Protection and Coast Guard ammunition purchases.
[Facepalm]
dugglebogey
August 20, 2012 at 10:38 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Obama’s “Department of Homeland Security?!?” WTF?
Didn’t George W create that abomination?
Modusoperandi
August 20, 2012 at 10:41 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
How? They already rally!
d cwilson
August 20, 2012 at 10:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You’re all forgetting that since the Kenyan Muslim took over, DHS has been taken over by a “lesbian cabal”. That’s what makes it “Obama’s Homeland Security”.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/08/17/geraldo_is_there_a_lesbian_cabal_leading_homeland_security.html
Every day, it gets harder and harder to tell the difference between Fox and the Onion.
DaveL
August 20, 2012 at 10:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
As much as I like having my personal views confirmed, which this certainly does, I would go so far as to say the two aren’t really analogous at all.
I say compare the comments on an MSNBC site or the Huffington Post to Fox Nation’s, or else compare the statements of secularist and LGBT organizations to those of the religious right following the shooting of Dr. George Tiller.
imrryr
August 20, 2012 at 11:44 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I have to agree with DaveL. Yeah, the Fox News comments are dumber than a bunch of dumb people competing in a Who’s The Dumbest competition, but comparing unmoderated comments to official statements just ain’t fair.
Ichthyic
August 20, 2012 at 11:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
comparing unmoderated comments to official statements just ain’t fair
probably not.
yet, these ARE statements made by a what constitutes an exponentially growing group of authoritarian fuckwits, who, if given power, will most certainly DO most of the things you see them fantasizing about in these forums.
so, sure, go find some extreme liberal comments on popular progressive blogs to compare these too.
You know how I know you won’t find this insanity there?
because this IS a popular liberal blog, and you don’t see them HERE.
don’t lose sight of the crazy that is fomenting out there, because you want comparisons to be “fair”.
matty1
August 20, 2012 at 12:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I decided to try this by looking at the Huffington Post report on the story. Things are complicated by a number of right wing commenters and I’m not reading 1177 comments for this. My unscientific method was I clicked at random on some of the comments pages, did a page search for the terms ‘hate’ and ‘war’ and ignored comments critical of Huffington Post since I was looking for ‘supporters’ of the site, who might be considered equivalent to the people quoted above. The ones I subjectively considered worst, in the sense of either stupid or likely to offend are below.
Not quite the same level I think but then again I didn’t do this properly.
jimnorth
August 20, 2012 at 12:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Here’s an “article” from a pro-FRC publication titled “Family Research Council shooter Floyd Corkins: ‘Six Degrees’ of Barack Obama”
http://www.examiner.com/article/family-research-council-shooter-floyd-corkins-six-degrees-of-barack-obama?cid=PROD-redesign-right-next
guilt by association fail
imrryr
August 20, 2012 at 12:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Ichthyic –
I wouldn’t compare those Fox Nation comments at a place like Dispatches here… it would be better to compare them with comments from, say, MSNBC or some other popular news outlet, do those sites have a Fox Nation equivalent? Some place with a lot more traffic than Ftb gets, is what I’m saying.
The thing is, I’m sure there are plenty of anti-equality groups releasing official statements so stupid that they would give those Fox News comments a run for their money. Statements from those groups would’ve made for a better comparison, imo.
But fear not, my friend. My pansy-ass concern about fairness has not blinded me to the reality that there are a lot of crazy fucknuggets out there, many of whom watch Fox News. I just think Ed would’ve been better off blogging about these Fox comments separately, that’s all.
pocketnerd
August 20, 2012 at 12:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
We-ell… I remember hearing at least a few liberals responding to the Representative Gabrielle Giffords shooting with equally disproportionate “OMG the Rethuglicans have finally declared open warfare on liberals, I KNEW this day would come” nuttery. (See also: “OMG Bush will cancel the 2008 election and declare himself president for life!”)
But Fox Nation definitely panders to the absolute bottomest of the bottom of the barrel, so there’s a pretty heavy selection bias there. I’m not sure where you’d find that many liberal crazies in one place. And the prevalence of militaristic revenge fantasies is definitely a right-wing shibboleth; liberals just don’t seem to get the same big throbbing boner from imagining themselves as mighty culture warriors fighting a desperate rearguard action against the evil Other.
democommie
August 20, 2012 at 12:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“The Family Research Council is, quite accurately, a fascist think-tank.”
Sorry, that’s a contradiction of terms.
“We-ell… I remember hearing at least a few liberals responding to the Representative Gabrielle Giffords shooting with equally disproportionate “OMG the Rethuglicans have finally declared open warfare on liberals, I KNEW this day would come” nuttery.”
Neither of those situations involved lefties blathering about 2nd Amendment “corrections” to the political process.
Ace of Sevens
August 20, 2012 at 2:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I agree that it isn’t fair to compare what official spokespeople said to comment-section rabble.
Michael Heath
August 20, 2012 at 8:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think the most jarring disconnect between a media outlet’s reputation and the quality of their comments is the Wall Street Journal. It nicely illustrates today’s Republican commenters unfortunately do not even remotely resemble the kind that acted like and supported Dwight Eisenhower, Tom Dewey, or Mitt’s dad George – the latter two much beloved by the business establishment back in the mid-20th century.
dan4
August 21, 2012 at 12:38 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“But do you know of any prominent liberal site where the commenters are supporting the shooting or spewing crazy conspiracy theories about it?”
Unfortunately, yes. At thinkprogress.org, the Facebook commentary thread featured a lady who thought the shooting was a conspiracy orchestrated by the FRC to get sympathy for the organization. Her comment got a ton of “likes” and I was one of only two commenters on the entire thread who criticized her remark (and my criticism got criticized in return by other commenters).
thomwatson
August 21, 2012 at 3:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Though it may not be fair to compare official statements with comments on a website, let’s compare official statements with official statements. Ed notes that 23 LGBT organizations released a statement within hours of the shooting (and the number is up to around 40 organizations now) condemning the shooter’s acts.
The State Department this past week noted that LGBT people around the world face torture, beatings and murder as “the status quo” and that many of these go unprosecuted. In the US, gay people are targeted as victims of hate crimes at a significantly higher rate than any other group (per the SPLC), in proportion to their percentage of the population. In the past month alone we’ve heard of several LGBT people who were murdered, set on fire, had derogatory slurs carved into their bodies with knives. It’s estimated that 1 in 12 transgender people will die of murder. Last week a 13-year-old transgender woman was found murdered in Chicago just blocks from where a similar murder took place in April. The FBI reported 1528 acts of hate crime against LGBT individuals in 2010, up from 1436 in 2009; and these are just the hate crimes reported and classified as such by the FBI. When did you ever see a statement from a single one of the anti-gay hate groups, much less a coalition of them, condemning a single one of these thousands of acts of violence and murder against LGBT individuals?
thomwatson
August 21, 2012 at 3:33 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I wrote that 40 LGBT organizations had signed onto the statement condemning the shooting. It’s actually now 50. Here’s the link: http://www.glaad.org/blog/lgbt-organizations-release-joint-statement-regarding-shooting-family-research-council-frc (Ed’s original story links to HRC’s list of the first 23, but HRC has not kept that list updated; I’ve linked to GLAAD’s site, which has).
dingojack
August 21, 2012 at 3:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thomwatson – “In the past month alone we’ve heard of several LGBT people who were murdered, set on fire, had derogatory slurs carved into their bodies with knives”.
In the US, I presume (it’s not exactly clear because of your jumping from anti-LGBT crimes worldwide to within the US).
“Last week a 13-year-old transgender woman was found murdered in Chicago just blocks from where a similar murder took place in April”.
Let’s not jump to a conclusion here, a hateful crime certainly, but a hate crime is yet to be established.
Dingo
thomwatson
August 21, 2012 at 5:52 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
dingojack
Fair enough. If we don’t have enough data on the more recent incidents involving LGBT victims, the point I was making seems sufficient with reference to the FBI’s lists of anti-LGBT hate crimes. Over 1500 people were targeted in 2010 for their sexual orientation or gender identity; last week’s shooting is the first we know of where someone was targeted in this way for their employment with an SPLC-categorized anti-gay hate group. Immediately after that one event, LGBT organizations made a quick and decisive statement condemning the violence; as the representative of one of those groups who ensured that our executive director signed onto it, I affirm that the statement was sincere and heartfelt on our group’s leadership’s behalf (though I realize I can offer no “proof” of that). In the US, LGBT people are attacked and murdered because of who they were born to be, at a significantly higher rate proportional to their presence in the US population, and anti-gay groups like the FRC and the AFA have not, to my knowledge and sincere attempts to research — ever made any official statements condemning acts of violence against those victims, either individually or collectively.
That’s not to deny that, when asked about their hateful rhetoric, of course, spokesmen for these organizations often will respond that they don’t wish harm or violence upon LGBT individuals — in fact, one often hears that their statements about LGBT people are made from “love” — though at least some of their statements about LGBT people, as cataloged by the SPLC, suggest that they do wish some degree of harm — spokesmen for the FRC, for example, in their official capacity have expressed a desire to expel all LGBT people from the country or to incarcerate them here. But that’s another digression, as I was trying to compare apples to apples here, official statements after the occasion of an potential hate crime committed against the FRC with (the lack of) official statements after the (many) occasions of anti-LGBT hate crimes.
dingojack
August 21, 2012 at 7:35 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thomwatson – Firstly let me say that I a certainly in agreement with you and your organisation. I was simply trying to avoid the trap of too broadly painting a situation with too little evidence.
The cases you cited in your penultimate post, happened in the US? I am shocked and appalled that level of violence can be condoned in a civilised country (well not really ‘civilisation is merely a veneer’).
Please keep up your good work until it is no longer needed (cue ‘Free Someday’).
Dingo
thomwatson
August 21, 2012 at 2:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
dingojack
Yes. But I’ve just read a new article, posted just today, noting that the woman in one of those cases (having anti-gay slurs carved into her body with a knife) now has been charged with staging the attack and making a false claim. Sigh. Disturbed people like her, and the shooter at FRC, just make that “Free Someday” that much further off, sadly, as our opponents love to use incidents like them to paint all of us who support LGBT equality as potential murderers (as NOM did in a recent fundraising mailer) or as liars who make up all attacks against us.