Despite all the hulabaloo in the media about the racist and anti-gay epithets Tea Party protesters allegedly hurled at African-American Congressmen and the unhappy Barney Frank, we could find only one corroborated report of such slurs; a POLITICO reporter overheard someone in the crowd yelled “faggot” at Frank.
And yet some in the MSM continue to peddle this nonsense about the movement being racist and anti-gay.
Yes, we do have that one example of a random person in the crowd, yelling a hateful slur. But, when a Congressman uses a sexual slur her fellow partisans (in the Democratic Party and in the MSM) regularly use to describe these protesters, the same people who can’t contain their outrage at alleged racist epithets remain silent.
Note the contrast? A citizen yells a hateful slur and the media get their panties all in a bundle. An elected Democratic Congressman uses a sexual slur to deride citizens protesting big government and they yawn. If it’s bad enough (and it is bad) when one citizen uses hateful rhetoric, wouldn’t it then be worse that it’s become commonplace for Democratic officials and their allies in the MSM and blogosphere to use a deliberately derogatory term to describe the most important and energetic political movement to emerge in the Obama era?
Routinely, I read comments either caught in our spam filter or which appear with our posts where readers describe the Tea Party movement a racist and/or anti-gay. Yet, I wonder how many of those folks have ever actually been to a Tea Party. These critics are not describing the Tea Parties that are, but conservatives as they see them. They’re describing an image in their own mind, not the protests taking place in town squares and public plazas across our country–and certain to increase in the coming days, weeks and months.
No matter what we say or do, it’s unlikely to change the narrow views of these prejudiced critics of our movement. The reality of the situation won’t change the perception conjured up by their imagination. They want Tea Parties to be racist and anti-gay, so racist and anti-gay they shall be.
Perhaps, to prove them wrong, we should bear signs proclaiming that we’re “Lesbians for Liberty” or “Homos for Freedom” the next time we attend Tea Parties to see how our fellow protesters react. Wait, our readers did just that:
And they weren’t taunted or asked to leave, indeed, they were made welcome, quite welcome. Their experience kind of defeats the narrative.
ADDENDUM: Glenn Reynolds has a great roundup on the determination of Democrats to brand the Tea Parties as racist–despite a paucity of evidence.
One of my clients is a lady who’s starting a website devoted to the Tea Party movement and its concerns. She has known all along that I’m a lesbian, and she could not possibly care less. I’m one of her best writers, and that’s all that matters to her. None of her associates in the movement seem bothered by my orientation, either. They are glad to have me aboard.
I’m sure there are those in the movement who would love to make it all about bashing the queers. But this is where those decades of coming out and telling our truth is beginning to pay off. We have too many friends and relatives on our side now — and many of them are Tea Partiers themselves. They know that the issue is freedom — that saving our country and our way of life is what it’s all about — and they’re determined not to be distracted again.
As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if any oddball at a protest yelling racist or homophobic slurs turned out to be a plant. Perhaps some of the same people pushing the notion that Tea Party people are bigots are actually going out there themselves and playing the part. Indeed, what’s to stop them?
It wouldn’t be the first time the Left resorted to such underhanded measures.
“It wouldn’t be the first time the Left resorted to such underhanded measures.”
Like self mutilating yourself with a “B” and blaming black Obama supporters?
oh wait..
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To the post:
There has been a pattern of racism and homophobia that keeps coming up again and again at these events.
The vodoo pic
The anti-gay rally at the Tea Party National Convention.
and on and on and on.
If these were isolated incidents that would be one thing but they are not.
Its a pattern of hatred and bigotry and the media is correct to highlight the hateful spew that keeps coming up at these events.
The real question is instead of closing your eyes to these episodes, why don’t you try and teach your hate-mongering peers that in 2010 this kind of behavior is unacceptable.
“The real question is instead of closing your eyes to these episodes, why don’t you try and teach your hate-mongering peers that in 2010 this kind of behavior is unacceptable.”
When I find some of these “hate-mongering peers,” I’ll have plenty to teach them. Where are they?
And again, who do they really work for?
LoL @ gillie’s “Have you no shame” crocodile tears.
Picture of Obama in voodoo gear (a clear reference to the widely used phrase “voodoo economics”) = a pattern of racism.
Terrorists, Maoists, 9/11 Truthers, racist Black Nationalists, New Left lunatics, Deep Ecologist Eugenicists, and self-proclaimed Communists form a hedge around Obama = Nothing to see here, and anyone who says so is a loon.
LOL
Perhaps, instead of “closing our eyes to these episodes,” we recognize them for what they are — aberrations — rather than indications of typical Tea Party behavior.
If only our leftist trolls would take ownership of every extreme, hateful, crazy or downright bizarre thing said or done by the isolated whackos on their side. After all, their basic premise is that a few loonies are SO important that nobody in a movement should move hand or foot until they’ve disposed of them — which, presumably, is as easy a matter as spraying for bugs.
It is not our responsibility to “teach” crazy people not to be crazy. I suppose we could post “NO WHACKOS” signs, at Tea Party events. Or. we could simply understand that the crazies are energized by attention and handle them the one way they can’t stand to be handled: simply ignore them.
Oh, but wait…who’s doing all the noticing? Why, of course, their actual enablers on the left!
How does the party funded by George Soros, self admitted nazi enabler, get to bash others for ‘racism’? LOL
They wouldn’t exist without it.
I have never heard a racist or anti-gay comment at a Tea Party. If I hear one, I’ll wonder whether the offender is an Alinsky acolyte out to discredit the Tea Partiers.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/obamas_nazi_straw_man_an_old_a.html
gillie, first of all, as I’ve said repeatedly, there are kooks in every grassroots movement. So, when you list a few, you don’t even challenge my point.
So, a hateful sign here, a mean-spirited comment there does not a hate movement make. Why do you refuse to see the world except through your prejudices?
Oh and, you can’t define a pattern by two incidents (all you list–but none you source) in a movement made up of thousands (maybe tens of thousands at this point) rallies.
Nope. More like Sarah Marshak who vandalized her dorm with swastikas and cried “raaaaaacists!!”
http://tinyurl.com/yhoxdvl
Or Kerri Dunn who vandalized her own car even painting ethnic slurs and a swastika and then cried “raaaaacists!!”
http://tinyurl.com/yc78vyf
Or three black students at the University of MS who vandalized several floors of a dorm and hung a noose in a tree outside.
http://tinyurl.com/yz6ccwq
Or Donald Maynard, a black firefighter in Baltimore who hung a noose in his firehouse with a threatening note attached and joined the typical dumbass liberal mantra of (you guessed it) “raaaaaacists!!”
http://tinyurl.com/2qyupy
Or Maurice Schwenkler, a paid liberal f*ktard who vandalized a DNC HQ in Denver. Naturally, the liberal dumbasses you love blamed Republicans until the little turd was caught.
http://tinyurl.com/ye2en9c
Shall I go on, ghillie? I can do this all night. How about you?
Here’s your sign.
Gateway pundit had a second article debunkinfg the n word incident…might want to check it out.
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/03/media-fraud-more-proof-that-leftist-media-lied-about-racist-attacks-on-black-reps-while-they-ignored-vulgar-attacks-by-lib-politicians/
The link to the story that I believe the good poster in #11 was referring to.
Memo to myself: Never, ever, EVER hit the “Say It” button in GP’s satanic comments form without first doing a Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C to copy the entire message to your clipboard. The times you forget to do this will invariably be the very same times that the GP server chokes.
(Summary of what I was going to say: The “corroborating” sentence from POLITICO is actually a calculated weasel-construction. That it rather ambiguously says “an epithet was overheard” instead of the more natural “the incident was overheard” should clue in the attentive reader.)
Barnaby Fwank from the Politico link:
gillie #3 above:
Congratulations, gillie you have toned down the rhetoric. Mass hysteria has morphed into a “pattern that keeps coming up.”
Is there no drama to which some gays will not resort?
I doubt, doubt, doubt the Politico claim. The out-raged Politico moral popper reporter should have, could have would have put his/her cell phone camera to the offender’s face and said “Got you, you homophobe, racist, unAmerican, low life, right wing Christian fundamentalist.”
Oh, I hear gillie simper: “Maybe the Politico reporter could not tell which homophobe, racist, unAmerican, low life, right wing Christian fundamentalist said it.” Well, gillie, it would be the person everyone was looking at and admonishing.
Ooops! Now I get it. Everyone in the TEA Party is a homophobe, racist, unAmerican, low life, right wing Christian fundamentalist and they were covering for their special hero who yelled the slur.
I expect little or nothing of gillie in the way of integrity. But the quote which Politico attributes to Barnaby Fwank is …….. well, ……. hysterical.
gillie, it is Spring and soon the ponds will be covered with pond scum. You can rise from your bottom feeding and enjoy the company mucking up the surface.
I just realized something,
Everyone who complains about ILC bringing up FSF and those two stupid women who brought their kids has no room to talk about one guy yelling slurs at a tea party rally.
After all, it’s hard to complain about ILC splattering you with paint when you’re using such a broad brush yourself…
Heliotrope observes:
Heliotrope, see my #13, and check out the actual sentence from Politico:
The Politico carefully avoids going on record as saying that one of its reporters personally overheard someone shouting “faggot” at Frank. The only claim that is actually “sourced” (albeit to an unnamed reporter!) is that someone spoke the word “faggot” out loud — and this not-very-newsworthy claim is segregated in a parenthetical clause.
The separate claim(s) that this insult was YELLED, and yelled at Frank, are not actually attributed to the reporter — instead, this portion of the sentence is NOT SOURCED.
The source-ambiguity that’s going on in the quoted sentence is a problem that copy editors are supposed to catch and correct. It’s possible that the Politico no longer has competent, full-time copy editors because of budget cutbacks. It’s also possible that a good copy editor DID catch and flag the ambiguity (“Hey, was our guy actually there at the moment someone shouted this at Frank, or should there be a ‘reportedly’ or ‘allegedly’ in this sentence?”), but was overridden by a more senior editor.
‘Respectable’ newscasters regularly use a degrading sexual slur about people like me who attend Tea Parties and then get all upset because one or two people shouted a nasty term at a congressman??
Oh yeah, I forgot, free speech is only for the left, anyone who holds a different point of view is obligated to shut up.
By the way, Heliotrope, I know you’re a homophobe and all, but I had a massive boner for you just the same, after reading your utterly sex-cellent rebuttal to someone who wanted to claim that calling a black man “nigger” or a homosexual man “faggot” is like unto bludgeoning them with a hammer.
I believe you used the phrase “a black man of any intelligence just shrugs and soldiers on,” or words to that effect, and I would suggest that an individual who can’t shrug it off and soldier on is merely a post-adolescent male — but not an adult, and most certainly not a man.
Blah, blah, blah. This crap from the left has been used more times than the poor Obamaniacs tossed under the bus when The Man’s through with them. I tune it out nowadays because it’s not worth my time.
So….on to the important part of this thread: who’s the very good-looking gentleman holding the charming sign? 🙂
I’m still trying to figure out why a group of black congressmen plus Barney Frank walked through the crowd to begin with. There are certainly more private ways for congresspersons to enter the Capitol.
Throbert,
Hopefully, you will understand my good cheer when I say that the post-adolescent male to which you refer is a pansy in my opinion and that bears no connotation whatsoever to his sexual orientation. Thanks for the props.
I am an “out” 33 year old Lesbian, and I have been attending teaparties since they began. Not only have I been attending teaparties to voice my concerns but have been invited to join several conservative/Republican organizations. I have never encountered anyone expressing anti-gay remarks or predjudicial comments…period! I have never hidden my sexuality, but then I have never made it an identifier of myself. I have been recieved within the ranks of these groups wholeheartedly. I am pround to be affiliated with them and all that the conservative movement stands for.
Rebecca, I am a 68 year old straight conservative and I am happy to heartily welcome you as a fellow traveler and unhyphenated American to the extraordinary battle for our country.
If you should encounter ANY disagreeable contact regarding your orientation from any TEA party person, scream loud and clear. None of us has the least interest in stupid stuff. Should we ever disagree on some social issue, I am sure we will keep it all in perspective.
“I have never hidden my sexuality, but then I have never made it an identifier of myself.”
In that succinct sentence, Rebecca has nailed the real distinction right on the head. The Tea Party movement welcomes us wholeheartedly — as long as we don’t make our orientation the sole determinant of our identity. Those opposed to the Tea Party movement DO expect us to make it the be-all and end-all of who we are.
We are merely being used by those who claim so loudly that they feel our pain and that they are our stalwart champions. This is why they take such elaborate pains to remind us how afraid we ought to be of the Tea Partiers. They must continually remind us where our allegiance should be placed.
They wouldn’t need to remind us of that so continually if it were the truth.
Being gay and conservative in oklahoma is pretty hard there are not groups or outlets but thanks for this sight, i consider myself someone that on many social issues i am more to the center and on some issues more to the right so Im not invited to many of the cocktail parties lol but love ya guys keep up the good work and let no person take your voice.