By Dan
McLaughlin
Tuesday,
March 28, 2023
Katherine
Fung of Newsweek reports on an effort by LGBTQ+
activists to suppress the “manifesto” of the Nashville Christian school
shooter:
Calls for police to release the “manifesto” that authorities say was
written ahead of Monday’s Nashville school shooting has prompted concern among
LGBTQ+ groups, who caution against the publication of such a document . . . .
“It should not be published,” Jordan Budd, the executive director of Children
of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE), told Newsweek. “The focus
should be on how this was able to happen in the first place. There should not
be such easy access to deadly weaponry.” . . . Laura McGinnis, a spokesperson
for PFLAG, agreed, telling Newsweek that publication of these
documents could increase the risk of contagion. She said that while the
manifesto could help law enforcement and policymakers identify potential
warning signs to prevent future tragedies, ultimately, “the contents don’t
change the outcome of the tragedy.” “Regardless of the shooter’s
intentions, the real issue here is the ease of access to deadly weapons in
Tennessee and elsewhere,” Budd said, adding, “All children, no matter who their
parents are or how they identify, should feel safe and supported at school.
That includes a world free from gun violence.”
Why are
these groups taking this stance? They are plainly afraid that it would be bad
to use the shooter’s words because this might cause people to blame other
people who share some of the shooter’s ideas. But this is exactly what
these groups, and their media advocates, would be doing if the tables were
turned. Every sentient adult knows that if a conservative, biblically orthodox
Christian shot up a transgender institution, these same people and groups would
be pushing the press (which would not need the pushing) to publish the
manifesto, precisely so that they could discredit people who shared some of the
shooter’s ideas. No honest person could deny this.
Even
more shamelessly, we have similar groups trying to capitalize on the shooting
to make themselves the real victims here. From Matt Lavietes
and Jo Yurcaba at
NBC Out: “Fear pervades Tennessee’s trans community amid focus on Nashville
shooter’s gender identity”
“We are terrified for the LGBTQ community here,” Kim Spoon, a trans
activist based in Knoxville, Tennessee, said. “More blood’s going to be shed,
and it’s not going to be shed in a school.” . . . Denise Sadler, a drag
performer who is transgender, said she had already hired four armed guards
before Monday’s shooting to secure a drag show she is hosting at a gay bar in
Nashville this weekend. Following the anti-trans rhetoric spawned by the
shooting, Sadler said she is now planning to hire eight. “You don’t know if
[the shooter’s gender identity] is going to trigger a community of people who
already hated us to come and try to shoot us to prove a point,” Sadler said.
“At the end of the day, there’s a lot of hurt going on, there’s a lot of anger
going on, there’s a lot of confusion going on.” . . .
Jace Wilder, the education director for the Tennessee Equality Project,
a Nashville-based LGBTQ advocacy group, said the suspect’s gender identity
“does not change the horror of what they did no matter their
reasoning.” “It is unfair and inappropriate to ask trans people to speak
on this person and the lives they took,” Wilder said in a message to NBC News.
“We, just like all other Tennesseans, are mourning. There is no politics I
could possibly care about right now when children are dead. End of story. I
pray and will stand with the families of all the victims and for peace for our
community and I hope we can all show up for them and each other in this time.”
Again:
If the situation were reversed, would NBC write this about Christian parents?
Is it even writing such a thing now about them? Of course not. Left-wing writer
Oliver Willis tweeted about coverage of this shooting: “a few
months ago i wrote about how der sturmer, a pro-nazi paper in 1930s and 40s
germany, laid the groundwork for the holocaust by linking every crime to jewish
people.” But let this be a police shooting of an unarmed black man, or an
attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband just before a midterm election, or an attack
on a synagogue by a MAGA type just before a midterm election, and Willis and his
ilk will be in full flood-the-zone mode linking every crime to their own
domestic enemies.
My
own longstanding
view on
political violence is that we should not blame people who have political
opinions, even very floridly expressed, when someone who shares those views
goes off the deep end and chooses violence. I blame people only when they
openly call forth mobs to seek personal conflict with their political enemies. And it is unquestionably true that
school shooters and other perpetrators of random, nihilistic violence against
strangers do so in very large part to gain the publicity the press predictably
showers upon them. So, my preferred approach would be:
1.
Do
not use the shooter’s name.
2.
Do
not quote the shooter’s words.
3.
Do
not blame the victims.
4.
Do
not generalize about people who share ideas, identity, or characteristics with
the shooter.
But if
the media give in to these requests only in this case, then turn around — as we
know they will — in future cases when there is political benefit to the Left .
. . well, we all know what they’re doing, and we all know that the people
making those decisions don’t give a damn about the body count caused by
encouraging more shooters to seek this kind of publicity.
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