How Blogs Publicize Gay-Bashing When MSM is Silent
Welcome Instapundit Readers!
UPDATE:Â Please note that I have changed this piece slightly to include the name of my source, the woman who translated the articles, once I received her permission to do so.
Within thirty-six hours of my posting on the April gay bashing in Amsterdam, a variety of websites, conservative, libertarian and gay, picked up on the story, including the blog of a leading Australian newspaper and the website of (the self-proclaimed) “largest gay news service” in Europe. That latter used language identical to that in the translations we provided, suggesting our post was their source.
We believe we were the first English-language source to cover this.
The publication (in the original sense of the term, “making public) of this story shows how powerful and necessary the blogosphere has become. Had I not met a Evelyn Markus, a Dutch Jewish lesbian, last weekend at the Santa Barbara Retreat of the Horowitz Freedom Center, few in the English-speaking world would have known about this event, yet another in a series of attacks on gay people n the Dutch capital.
Learning I was a blogger, Evelyn alerted me to the incident and asked me to write about it. I told I could do so only with evidence, i.e., links to other articles or a police report. She told me about the articles and then (on her own dime) offered to translate them for me.
We are particularly grateful for her efforts. They have helped making people increasingly aware of what Mark Steyn called (in linking this post) a “Dutch gay-bashing spree.”
All to many gay news sites seem indifferent to this phenomenon. If it weren’t for that chance meeting, this story might not have come out.
No wonder the MSM is in decline. When news outlets paid to cover this thing don’t uncover such stories, especially given that they’re part of a disturbing trend, we’re dependent on unpaid bloggers (and other regular citizens) to make public such information.
Where we would be without the blogosphere is beyond me.
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Kudos
Comment by ThatGayConservative — June 8, 2008 @ 3:26 am - June 8, 2008
G’day. I’m neither American nor gay, but as a conservative in Australia I found your site via the link in Andrew Bolt’s blog and have you bookmarked now.
Looks like a lot of the issues raised on your blog are of concern to a wider audience than just gay Americans. It’s a fine site you have here, and you did a terrific job getting the word about the Dutch gay-bashing out. Keep up the good work mate.
Comment by Ian from Oz — June 8, 2008 @ 7:20 am - June 8, 2008
Dan: Great job.
I just want to add one thing.. the bigger issue goes way beyond gay bashing. Muslims gangs are also gang raping native European women and committing all sorts of violent acts against the broader European population.
They’re waging jihad against Europe keeping in the fine traditions of thier past conquests.
The gay bashing is the beginning of this process, not the end. It’s important for people to understand the scale of what is happening.
This is how Persia was conquered:
“More Moslems came, and soon a small mosque was built, which attracted yet others. As long as Zoroastrians remained in the majority, their lives were tolerable; but once the Moslems became the more numerous, a petty but pervasive harassment was apt to develop. This was partly verbal, with taunts about fire-worship, and comments on how few Zoroastrians there were in the world, and how many Moslems, who must therefore posses the truth; and also on how many material advantages lay with Islam. The harassment was often also physical; boys fought, and gangs of youth waylaid and bullied individual Zoroastrians. They also diverted themselves by climbing into the local tower of silence and desecrating it, and they might even break into the fire-temple and seek to pollute or extinguish the sacred flame. Those with criminal leanings found too that a religious minority provided tempting opportunities for theft, pilfering from the open fields, and sometimes rape and arson. Those Zoroastrians who resisted all these pressures often preferred therefore in the end to sell out and move to some other place where their co-religionists were still relatively numerous, and they could live at peace; and so another village was lost to the old faith.”
Boyce, A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism, pp. 7-8;
Comment by Vince P — June 8, 2008 @ 9:46 am - June 8, 2008
Blogs are useful for keeping people up on what Islamists are up to. There are stories that just don’t get reported because the MSM is too chicken to touch them. Its not just gay bashing from the extremists its anyone not like them.
Comment by Andrew Ian Dodge — June 8, 2008 @ 9:59 am - June 8, 2008
You don’t have to be homosexual to be outraged by this story and the subsequent lack of coverage by the MSM.
Comment by Brian G. — June 8, 2008 @ 3:13 pm - June 8, 2008
You break all those stereotypes of the silly gay person. I for one, though not gay, appreciate what you do and the courage you have to do it against all odds.
Comment by Bubba — June 8, 2008 @ 3:18 pm - June 8, 2008
Hmmm. Where would we be? Unarmed probably, democrats in control of everything, overtaxed, and lied to on a daily basis?
Comment by Kevin — June 8, 2008 @ 4:02 pm - June 8, 2008
I am a conservative, straight American. I am not in favor of gay marriage in America.
HOWEVER, gays and straights have the right to peacefully live their lives. This man was acting peacefully when set upon by thugs. These people need to be expelled from Holland AFTER serving time in jail for assault.
The MSM is unwilling to tell the truth about a “PC” religous group – Muslims. Between honor killings, riots over catroons and gay-bashing, Western culture is being rejected in its home.
For their own protection, gays need to understand that it is conservatives that stand for Western values of tolerance and the left-wing that embraces Islamicists. They are far more secure in a society that embraces The Enlightenment than in one that rejects it.
Comment by Andrew M — June 8, 2008 @ 5:13 pm - June 8, 2008
Gay City News has this report
http://www.gaycitynews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19749893&brd=2729&pag=461&dept_id=569342
I made this comment which is still in moderation.
There is no greater right than the right to life. As radical Islam spreads and Muslims attack gay people in places like Amsterdam or kills them outright like in Iran, which President is going to do anything at all to try to fight this menance… is Obama? Right! every Islamist from Tehren to Gaza is almost in glee at the prospect of Obama winning.
Gays in America are so detached from reality that they think federal ENDA is a prime concern to them. Must be nice. Voting for Obama is a signal to the forces of Jihad and gay-killing that America is giving up its fight with them. This will result in more misery for gay people around the world.. and the increased misery of all of us here at home as the economy is plundered by the empty suit. Just image.. vote for Obama and he appoints all his Nation of Islam buddies into positions all over the Federal Government. That’s certainly Change!
Comment by Vince P — June 8, 2008 @ 5:32 pm - June 8, 2008
#5
You ought to disambiguate yourself from the liberal tool by the same name. Perhaps “TheOtherKevin” or “KevinII”
Comment by ThatGayConservative — June 8, 2008 @ 5:54 pm - June 8, 2008