Ramin Setoodeh: THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD!

August 2, 2008

Blaming LGBT people for the violence inflicted against them is not a new tactic.

I am reminded of the words of Pope Benedictus XVI, Cardinal Ratzinger when he wrote the following, found in ‘Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,’ ‘The proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual persons should not be to claim that the homosexual condition is not disordered. When such a claim is made and when homosexual activity is consequently condoned, or when civil legislation is introduced to protect behavior to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the Church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground, and irrational and violent reactions increase.’ READ: ‘listen, queers…if you want to behave queerly - then don’t be surprised when you’re murdered for it.’ This is the logic of a ‘gay panic defense’ and an expression of papal wisdom.

And this brings me to a story in Newsweek - a story I called attention to here.

Ramin Setoodeh frames Lawrence ‘Larry’ King - he’s small; he’s flamboyant; he attends school in stilettos, and he chases the boys. Read: Larry is a faggy-fag.

But he is (I choose to speak of Larry in the present) not a faggy-fag on the day of his murder. Something is up. ‘He came to school dressed like any other [{insert} normal] boy: tennis shoes, baggy pants, a loose sweater over a collared shirt. He seemed unhappy about something….One student noticed that as Larry walked across the quad, he kept looking back nervously over his shoulder before he slipped into his first-period English class….’

And then the terror: ‘At 8:30 a.m., a half hour into class, Brandon quietly stood up. Then, without anyone’s noticing, he removed a handgun that he had somehow sneaked to school, aimed it at Larry’s head, and fired a single shot. Boldrin, who was across the room looking at another student’s work, spun around. “Brandon, what the hell are you doing!” she screamed. Brandon fired at Larry a second time, tossed the gun on the ground and calmly walked through the classroom door. Police arrested him within seven minutes, a few blocks from school. Larry was rushed to the hospital, where he died two days later of brain injuries.’

The next sentence (prepare yourself for the stupidity): ‘But despite all the attention and outrage, the reason Larry died isn’t as clear-cut as many people think.’ WTF? ‘How do you protect legitimate, personal expression while preventing inappropriate [what, exactly?], sometimes harmful [do tell], behavior [what, homosexuality?]? Larry King was, admittedly, a problematical test case: he was a troubled child who flaunted his sexuality and wielded it like a weapon [ah, now we know what that problematic, harmful behavior is - and that the wise Setoodeh thinks homosexuality is a type of, say, gun?]—it was often his first line of defense [against what? the fucking homo-haters!..]. But his story sheds light on the difficulty of defining the limits of tolerance. As E. O. Green [the name of the high school] found, finding that balance presents an enormous challenge.’

How does one define the limits of tolerance? Limits of tolerance = the border that separates heterosexual comfort from heterosexual discomfort. Larry made the ‘normal’ boys and teachers uncomfortable.

‘Larry, being Larry, pushed his rights as far as he could [what a terrible American! How dare he take advantage of his rights to LIFE, liberty,and the pursuit of happiness!]. During lunch, he’d sidle up to the popular boys’ table and say in a high-pitched [read: fag] voice, “Mind if I sit here?” In the locker room, where he was often ridiculed, he got even by telling the boys, “You look hot,” while they were changing, according to the mother of a student.’

‘And then there was Valentine’s Day. A day or two before the shooting, the school was buzzing with the story about a game Larry was playing with a group of his girlfriends in the outdoor quad. The idea was, you had to go up to your crush and ask them to be your Valentine. Several girls named boys they liked, then marched off to complete the mission. When it was Larry’s turn, he named Brandon, who happened to be playing basketball nearby. Larry walked right on to the court in the middle of the game and asked Brandon to be his Valentine. Brandon’s friends were there and started joking that he and Larry were going to make “gay babies” together. At the end of lunch, Brandon passed by one of Larry’s friends in the hall. She says he told her to say goodbye to Larry, because she would never see him again.‘

The wise Ramin Setoodeh asks, ‘The obvious question now is whether Larry’s death could have been prevented. “Absolutely,” says Dannenberg. “Why do we have youngsters that have access to guns? Why don’t we have adequate funding to pay for social workers at the school to make sure students have resources? We have societal issues.” [thanks, Dannenberg, for a smart answer - but now prepare yourself for the stupid, again] Many teachers and parents [and Ramin Setoodeh] aren’t content with that answer. For them, the issue isn’t whether Larry was gay or straight [riiiiiight....]—his father still isn’t convinced his son was gay [of course!]—but whether he was allowed to push the boundaries so far that he put himself and others in danger [of what? - is this small, faggy-fag going to kill someone with eye-liner?...is he at risk of tripping over his own shoes?...is his fagginess a danger to others? how? i love threats of violence hidden in compassionate speech: we care about you, don't come out or we will hurt you you will get hurt] . They’re not blaming Larry for his own death [riiiiiight - only Setoodeh is]—as if anything could justify his murder [except the fact he is a fag]—but their attitude toward his assailant is not unsympathetic [no shit.]. “We failed Brandon,” a teacher says. “We didn’t know the bullying was coming from the other side [haha, yes! Larry is a bully - he wants Brandon to be his valentine!; what is not reported well is the ethos of torture within which Larry had to operate day-to-day. what did Larry's peers say about and do to him? the surest way to combat homophobia - is to claim your sexuality as normative. what 'ammo' does the homo-hater have when the homo is not afraid or ashamed of being a homo? oh, wait - when words no longer have the desired effect, bullets will do the trick.]—Larry was pushing as hard as he could, because he liked the attention [like most adolescents trying to earn a space in the social pecking order]‘

The message Ramin Setoodeh is sending is not difficult to detect. If only Larry had not been gay (that is, if he had just passed or stayed in the closet), Larry would still be alive - and Brandon, poor Brandon, would not be on his way to jail. Larry is not the victim of homophobia - Brandon’s homophobia, the teachers homo-hate. Larry’s faggy-fagness resulted in his death…he is just toooo other to be tolerated. Hear, ‘[N]either the Church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground, and irrational and violent reactions increase.’

If we frame this situation in heterosexual terms, none of this makes sense. Hetero kids express their heterosexuality everyday (and there is no indication that Larry is expressing himself in ways that would make one feel unsafe, intimidated, etc). But what Setoodeh is arguing is, simply: the expression of Larry’s homosexuality (it was just tooo loud…he did not pass, like the martian child…he acted like he was from another planet) was, inherently, problematic. But I ask, what is so abnormal or physically threatening about a girl walking over to a boy and asking, ‘Will you be my valentine?’ Nuthin. Why? Heterosexual behavior is accepted.

The cause of Larry’s death is not complex - as Setoodeh stupidly argues. Larry’s death is the direct result of homophobia. Churches, parents, society, etc - who proclaim homos are evil are to blame - not Larry. And that teacher is right - they did fail Brandon. They failed to educate him; they failed to help him and his peers understand that gay is ok. They are one of the reasons he is a murderer who will live the bulk of his life in jail. They are one of the reasons Larry is no longer alive. They did fail - yes. they. did.

I can’t help but conclude by mentioning Robert Gagnon.

In a wonderful twist, Robert Gagnon argues, ‘While anti-homosexual violence deserves to be vigorously denounced, it does nobody any good to ignore the dangerous way in which isolated and relatively rare incidents of violence against homosexuals have been exploited to stifle freedom of speech and coerce [fags are bullies, again!] societal endorsement of homosexual practice’ (stupid book, 29). And if that was not enough: ‘[S]tatistically more significant than hate crimes against homosexuals are the harmful effects of various forms of homosexual behavior on homosexuals themselves: serious health risks (such as AIDS) associated with anal intercourse and rampant promiscuity; “pick-up murders,” in which a gay man kills an anonymous sex partner; and high rates of domestic violence and sadomasochism [oh, goodness] among homosexual couples’ (from stupid book, 30). I love this…

But I say unto you: The most significant factor contributing to the demise of heterosexuality and the world: the behavior of heterosexuals themselves: serious health risks (such as AIDS) associated with vaginal and anal intercourse and rampant promiscuity, the high level of abortions in the heterosexual community, baby stealing, in which a woman or man kills a pregnant woman and rips the baby from her womb, the harm done to children due to parental abuse, neglect, divorce, and homophobia, and the high rates of domestic violence, infidelity, and sadomasochism, in which men(!) allow women to piss in their faces and whip and fuck their asses with a ’strap on,’ that is, an artificial penis.