I let this topic lie a while ago, so it's far from topical, but I don't care because I like it and am finishing it.
Let's just say, I'm more than a little infuriated right now. The first reason is, of course, that somebody decided to respond to the FRC by shooting somebody involved with it. But I'll talk about that later. The thing that infuriates me the most about it is how many people are blaming this on the fact that the "Family Research Council" has been labeled a hate group.
I'm not going to comment on why somebody would shoot another human being. With very few exceptions, it is a deplorable act. But there's something that is being left out of this discourse, and that's that the FRC directly and knowingly supports the killing of LGBT people. Their president, Tony Perkins, gave glowing praise to the bill in Uganda that would have ordered the death penalty for homosexuality.
No, seriously, let that sink in. This group is headed by a guy who gave praise to a law with provisions meant to kill gay people, and while they try doing "damage control" over stuff like this, it's pretty clear that this organization exists to antagonize LGBT people, deny us the rights we're entitled to, and criminalize consensual behaviors which are not uniquely harmful outside of a religious context. So, uh, yeah, you're a hate group.
These people made the case that the SPLC labeling them a "hate group" was a catalyst for the whole thing. Was it? I don't know. The reality is, it doesn't matter.
Going up to the Grand Dragon or whatever the fuck label they use of a KKK chapter and shooting him is also deplorable. That doesn't mean we shouldn't call the KKK a hate group. It is.
Punching a neo-Nazi in the face could be rather cathartic, but it's still assault and rightfully prosecuted as such. That doesn't make that neo-Nazi somehow not a member of a hate group.
But here's the part that is really gross to me. These assholes got a lot of positive press over this guy being shot, and there are even people spouting bullshit like that somehow it's a massive trend among LGBT people to assault homophobes. What they wind up pushing under the rug is that the opposite is far more true. LGBT people are regularly assaulted, murdered, have our property vandalized, and have all of it minimized by other people. Trans women, especially, are not only vulnerable to assault, but they're vulnerable to people blaming them for their assaults, like a recent case where a guy tried to rape a trans woman, found out she was trans, beat her up, and then claimed he wasn't guilty because assaulting her was apparently a totally normal reaction and he wouldn't have raped her when he found out anyway.
Then there's Uganda. Remember that law, again? The one that makes homosexuality punishable by death? The one the president of the FRC apparently gets a boner over?
Why are we giving a pity party to an organization over one guy when the same organization supports making it legal to kill thousands of people?
