A Shooting and Media Silence

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/ben-shapiro/a-shooting-and-media-silence/print/

Yesterday, a gunman opened fire at the conservative 501(c)3 Family Research Council, an organization dedicated to standing up for traditional values, particularly with regard to marriage. The gunman was posing as an intern; only an alert security guard stopped the suspect from committing mass homicide, in all likelihood.

The suspect was reportedly carrying a Chick-fil-A bag; Chick-fil-A is, of course, the restaurant chain most prominently linked with the traditional marriage cause, and an organization that has come under assault from the organized left, including Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel and Mayor of Boston Thomas Menino. He began shouting about the politics of FRC, then began shooting.

The security guard on duty asked the man whom he was visiting; the man opened fire, wounding the guard in the arm. The security guard disarmed him; the man then said, “Don’t shoot me, it was not about you, it was what this place stands for.”

Who was the suspect? According to new reports, his name was Floyd Lee Corkins II, and he was a volunteer at a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender center.

It took the media hours to report on the shooting. As of this writing, some hours later, it is not on the front page of the Los Angeles Times. It isn’t on the front page of the New York Times. It’s nowhere to be found.

Now, imagine that an enraged Christian man had entered the headquarters of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation wielding a backpack full of ammunition. Imagine he began shouting about the sin of same-sex marriage. Imagine he’d shot a guard.

Is there any doubt it would have made the front page of every newspaper in the country? Is there any doubt at all that Democrats would immediately have accused Republicans for inciting this man, blamed churches for indoctrinating him, and called for regulation of “offensive hate speech”?

Most of all, wouldn’t the White House immediately call for an exponential increase in the amount of funding for their anti-bullying program, headed up by Dan Savage, and focusing in large measure on preventing bullying of gay kids?

But when a gay activist shoots up a traditional values center, nobody has anything to say.

The fact is this: the true bullies in the culture war are of the left. And some of the worst bullies in that culture war are members of the militant same-sex marriage movement. When Dan Savage screams at Christian kids who don’t want to listen to him slander the Bible, that’s bullying; it’s bullying, too, when he slanders Rick Santorum or tells Herman Cain to perform oral sex on him. But he’s still invited to the White House. The left’s anti-bullying crusade is, in large measure, a bullying crusade meant to delegitimize all those on the other side of the political aisle. And it shouldn’t be a surprise if some on the left take that crusade too far. When the left celebrates gay “artists” who deface the walls of Chick-fil-A with anti-traditional marriage graffiti, it’s a tacit nod criminal activity.

The left isn’t responsible for this person. He’s responsible for himself. But if any political rhetoric could drive someone to violence – and again, this person is responsible for his own evil acts – it is the rhetoric of the radical left. When President Obama says he “evolved” to okay gay marriage, he implies that his opponents are unevolved – lesser human beings. When government actors try to boycott restaurants owned by those who disagree on marriage, they’re painting them as somehow less than worthy of basic American rights. When Hollywood actors try to get theater managers fired for voting for Proposition 8, they’re sending a message of brutal intolerance.

The message of the left on marriage is that those who oppose same-sex marriage are haters. Or rather, H8ers. And H8ers deserve to be hurt.

None of this rhetoric causes murder or attempted murder. But if we’re going to live in a leftist media society where The Dark Knight Rises gets blamed for James Holmes, Sarah Palin gets blamed for Jared Lee Loughner, and the Tea Party gets blamed for Joe Stack, the left had better take responsibility for its own bullying – and results far more easily linked to their ideology than movie violence to Holmes, Palin to Loughner, or Gadsden flags to Stack.