Ruth Institute Blog

Leland, the link to the video has been severed. A message appears instead: “This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube’s Terms of Service. Sorry about that.”

The video is still available at the TFP Student Action website:

http://www.tfpstudentaction.org/what-we-do/street-campaigns/video-pro-homosexuals-at-brown-university-respond-to-peaceful-tfp-rally-with-violence.html

Qoting the conlcuding paragraphs of the firsthand account by John Ritchie:

“Are you with TFP Student Action?” asked a lady crossing the church parking lot with small children in tow. “Yes,” I answered. “I’m following your tour, watching the videos, seeing what abuses you endure and I truly admire what you are doing. Your valor makes us so happy. And we love the bagpipes.

There may have been 250 people yelling at you today at Brown, but I want you to know that there are many more families like ours supporting you and praying for you. There are a lot of people following behind your tall banner.” Gathering her children around her, the lady continued: “These men are real Catholic men. They do what all Catholics should be doing. They are Catholic heroes. They stand on the street corners [for traditional marriage] and endure being spit upon and get things thrown at them. We need to give them our prayers and our thanks.”

/End quote.

Crashing through a banner isn’t a revocation of your freedom of speech, it’s just an idiot crashing through a banner. Violence from either side of the debate should not be tolerated.

I do have one question though, when was the last time a straight Christian was beaten and murdered for their anti-gay stance in this country? There are stories almost every day across the US of gay men and women being attacked simply for being gay. When those crimes end maybe I’ll feel a little sympathy for your torn banner.

This is SOP (standard operating procedure) for the homosexualist crowd. I see it over and over and over again. Only they have the right of speech. And only their opponents are “intolerant.”

@Vast Variety

“…when was the last time a straight Christian was beaten and murdered for their anti-gay stance in this country? There are stories almost every day across the US of gay men and women being attacked simply for being gay.

If by “attacked” you mean verbally insulted or offended, then yes, unfortunately that probably happens “almost every day”. But your question makes it sound like gay people are being “beaten and murdered” almost every day.

The only Christian I know by name that was beaten and murdered for her “anti-gay stance” is Mary Stachowicz:
—————–
A man allegedly killed a 51-year-old woman and hid her body under the floor of his Northwest Side apartment after she confronted him for having sex with men, the suspect’s defense lawyer said Thursday.

The admission came in opening statements in the trial of Nicholas Gutierrez, charged in the November 2002 killing of Mary Stachowicz, a part-time worker at the F.J. Sikorski Funeral Home, where Gutierrez lived in an upstairs apartment. from the Chicago Tribune, Oct. 27, 2006.
—————

There may be more, but considering the deafening silence in the national media about this particular murder, we probably will never know.

Since the video had been taken down, I watched another one taped in Rhode Island.
It is interesting that people who do not believe in hell can seem so eager for someone to go there.

Ginny, yes I do mean beaten and murdered.

26 year old Damian Furtch was beaten on March 28th
18-year-old Anthony Collao was murdered on March 24th
29 year old Barie Shortell was beaten on Feb 22nd

Those are just a few in the last few weeks that were found by a simple google search. There are many more but there is only so much of that kind of stuff I can handle reading.

@Vast Variety

I had done a google search before my last post, but I guess I used the wrong search terms. When I just now tried “beaten for being gay”, I found several current incidents, including those you mentioned.

These crimes are terrible, and I hope they catch and convict the criminals who did it. And I do mean criminals. Damian described one of his attackers as having “a huge tattoo of a gothic cross under his left eye..it was approximately 2 inches”.

Anthony Collao’s murderers “forced their way into the party…began busting windows and picking fights, witnesses said. The teens also flashed gang signs, yelled slurs and scrawled epithets in red marker on the walls”.

Another gay man who was beaten in a separate attack (Chris Rabideau, 26) said “I think it was drug-related, I think they wanted money.” They took his wallet and tried to make him get money from an ATM; it was when he ran off and thwarted their plan that they beat him while calling him various slurs.

The type of person who would do that sort of thing is not the same as a person standing on a street corner holding a sign and passing out fliers.

First and foremost, anyone being beaten up or worse is absolutely deplorable and should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Everyone who writes or comments on the Ruth blog agrees with that.

The problem is that classical liberalism (“I disapprove with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”), which I support, has morphed into political correctness, with its speech codes and soft totalitarianism, which I do not support.

Foreigners and immigrants are beaten (often without press notice since the victims are illegal immigrants and are afraid to go to the police), sometimes to death (which generally does make the news), which is terrible, and the guilty should be punished. It does not follow that advocates of border security should be denied their right to free speech either by law or custom or cultural pressure.

@Ginny
Ginny, you are right — there is a huge difference between people who commit acts of violence and people who stand on corners handing out fliers. But the people handing out fliers help to foster a climate that considers gay people to be less worthy, less valuable, than non-gay people. When people on this blog argue that gay people are a danger to children, or refer to gay people as sodomites, or simply refuse to recognize gay people as equally deserving of full citizen rights (and all the responsibilities those rights entail — whether it is marrying, or adopting children, or volunteering for the military and putting their lives on the line for the rest of us), they encourage a climate of bias, and this climate of bias makes it easier to be violent against gay people.

@Emma
Exactly.

Wow, so Emma, the punishment for disagreeing with your churlish bias is … to be accused of inciting violence. Your rhetoric is nonsensical and is designed, not to get at truth, but to acclimatize society to appeasing the gay identity group.

Meanwhile, are you making excuses for the behavior of the SSMers in that video? If so, then, you own rhetoric accuses yourself.

The topic is the video in the blogpost. You grabbed the opportunity to do exactly what you would accuses others of doing.

Chairm, I was responding specifically to Ginny.

Heidi, who chimed in, could answer the query, if she thinks she knows your meaning sufficent that she could agree “exactly” with what you said.

Ginny and Heidi, please respond to the query. Thanks.

@Emma

But the people handing out fliers help to foster a climate that considers gay people to be less worthy, less valuable, than non-gay people…this climate of bias makes it easier to be violent against gay people.

Oh for crying out loud! The type of gang-banging thug criminals we’re talking about wouldn’t give a rat’s a** if the Catholic Church started performing gay marriages at the Vatican! They don’t acknowledge the “worth” or “value” of anyone except themselves. They will continue to jump, rob, rape, beat, and kill people, whether for money, for “honor”, or just for kicks.

(calming down now…) Actually, this whole thread seems to have gone far afield from the original post, which had to do with free speech and the obstruction thereof…

@Ginny

I’m not sure who you are referring to, as far as gang-banging criminals. But I am thinking of people like Bradlee Dean, who has received quite a bit of money from Republican fundraising and whose band sings songs calling for the execution of homosexuals. Though he himself has never been caught actually executing or committing violence against a gay person (that I know of), his language encourages violence against gay people.

I am also thinking of those “Christians” who helped draft the bill in Uganda that calls for the criminalization, arrest, and possible execution of people who are gay.

Why would discussing something like this make you so mad at me that you have to calm down?

Emma,

Are you making excuses for the behavior of the SSMers in that video? If so, then, you own rhetoric accuses yourself.

I’m surprised how civilized gay people are, as they fight for equal civil rights! I know if I were prohibited from marrying, I wouldn’t be too happy about it!

Sean :
I’m surprised how civilized gay people are, as they fight for equal civil rights! I know if I were prohibited from marrying, I wouldn’t be too happy about it!

Sean, you yourself have agreed that gays can get married to people of the other gender, that there is nothing stopping them in the law from doing so.

You have noted that if they are impeded, it is by the nature of their identity as homosexuals, in other words they aren’t gay if they do get married to someone of the other gender just like a Jew cannot be a Jew unless they can worship on Saturdays.

If so, then they shouldn’t be to happy that someone is foisting an identity on them. I know I wouldn’t be.

But still, that you find their behavior to be civilized reminds me of the open violence you’ve fomented against religionists in the past. Let me dig up the comment where you said you hoped Christians all suffered a silent death.

“Sean, you yourself have agreed that gays can get married to people of the other gender, that there is nothing stopping them in the law from doing so.”

But doing so would violate an inherent part of who they are, which is romantically attracted to people of the same sex. Gay people form couples with same-sex individuals, not opposite-sex individuals. Marriage follows from the formation of a couple, not the other way around. You want straight people to form couples, and marry, but you evidently want gay people to want to marry, and then pair up with an opposite-sex person in order to do so. That places an unnecessary burden on gay people.

“You have noted that if they are impeded, it is by the nature of their identity as homosexuals, in other words they aren’t gay if they do get married to someone of the other gender just like a Jew cannot be a Jew unless they can worship on Saturdays.”

I don’t know how you come up with this stuff. A Jew isn’t a Jew because he considers Saturday the Sabbath. That’s a tenet of the Jewish faith, just one aspect of being Jewish: worshiping on Saturday. Forcing a Jew to worship on Sunday doesn’t change his Jewishness. Similarly, a gay man marrying a woman (plenty have) doesn’t change the fact that he’s gay.

“If so, then they shouldn’t be to happy that someone is foisting an identity on them. I know I wouldn’t be.”

If someone claims to be gay, he or she has foisted an identity on himself or herself, not me.

“But still, that you find their behavior to be civilized reminds me of the open violence you’ve fomented against religionists in the past. Let me dig up the comment where you said you hoped Christians all suffered a silent death.”

That you are obsessed with me is oddly flattering. I certainly don’t hope all Christians suffer a silent death, or even a noisy death. I don’t care if they live or die. I do want them to stop imposing their faith beliefs on others.