There is a trend emerging in the conservative media: gays as murderers.
It started on Fox News with Dr. Robi Ludwig's analysis of the Isla Vista killings. Rejecting the shooter's own explanation for the killings, Dr. Ludwig introduced the idea of gay rage as the root cause:
When I was first listening to him, I was like, "Oh, he's angry with women for rejecting him." And then I started to have a different idea: Is this somebody who is trying to fight against his homosexual impulses? Was he angry with women because they were taking away men from him? ... I think too, was he angry at the men for not choosing him?
Dr. Ludwig transformed a heterosexual killer into a repressed homosexual madman. Much more palatable for the average Fox News viewer.
The Family Research Council's Ken Blackwell went further, blaming the killings on the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage:
The teaching of sexual roles and the development of human sexuality in our culture -- when these fundamental institutions are attacked and destroyed and weakened and abandoned, you get what we are now seeing, and that is a flood of disturbed people in our society.
One killer was not enough for Mr. Blackwell. He wants Americans to believe that all gay people are to blame for the recent glut of mass murders.
Not to be outdone, the FRC's leader, Tony Perkins, likened advances in gay rights to the Holocaust. In response to the ruling by Colorado's Civil Rights Commission upholding an administrative judge's prior finding that Jack Phillips, a wedding-cake baker, is breaking civil-rights law by refusing to serve same-sex couples, Mr. Perkins wondered if this development could lead to the extermination of Christians:
I'm beginning to think, "Are reeducation camps next? When are they going to start rolling out the boxcars to start hauling off Christians?"
The implication here is that all the gays will kill all the Christians.
Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association took the Nazi comparison further when he referred to "the Gay Gestapo" and "Stormtroopers" in response to the Colorado story. Mr. Fischer, getting even more creative, blended the idea of the gay Nazi with slave masters, tyrants and the mafia:
When a man is forced, under threat of being sent to jail, to do work that he would not do unless he was compelled to do it, he is no longer a free man but a slave. ... Not only is Phillips being reduced to slavery, he is now the victim of tyranny as well, since he is being compelled by the government to violate his own conscience. So meet our new overlords, the new owners of the American plantation, the gay mafia. All hail Big Gay, our new slave masters.
Mr. Fischer advocates fighting back against this oppression:
The Gay Gestapo must be stopped in its tracks, immediately and decisively, before all freedom, whether of the religious or civil kind, vanishes from America.
What is going on here?
Conservatives are grasping at straws. For years they have preached that the growing acceptance of gays and same-sex marriage would lead to God's wrath and the destruction of civilization. They blamed gays for just about everything: hurricanes, tornadoes, floods -- you name it. The message was clear: If America allows the dreaded homosexuals to move forward, God will wreak havoc. But now half of all Americans live in states where marriage equality is the law of the land, and polls show an ever-increasing acceptance of homosexuality. Is God angry? No. Has society crumbled? No. The far right was wrong.
What are homophobes to do when their anti-gay rhetoric loses its power? They try a new tactic: God may do nothing, but the gays will hurt you directly! Unprovoked, gays will lash out! Gays are walking time bombs! Gays are murderers! Beware the killer gay!
Will this new story line take hold? Will Americans fear violent homosexual attacks? I doubt it. Although I do not like stereotyping, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that, by and large, we gays are a peaceful people. When we get together, we are not planning the mass extermination of Christians. We are gathering to watch the Tony Awards. We are planning wardrobes for trips to Provincetown. Murder? Not so much.
All kidding aside, I am growing weary of this effort to discredit me. I am a good person. I contribute to society in positive ways. I volunteer for a children's hospital, for goodness' sake. God does not hate me. I do not want to kill anybody. Give me a break.