Anti-gay blogger Jerry Fuhrman tells us that the Klan is having a little rally in Virginia. I’m not sure what Jerry is upset about – he must not realize that they are his political allies, or at least doesn’t want to draw attention to it. Maybe that’s what he meant by “of all the problems we need to be dealing with.” But hey, every vote counts, right?
This is what the KKK was up to at a rally exactly one year ago:
“We just want to come and encourage people to vote for Christian Family Values and against legalized homosexual marriage in the state of Texas.”
Steven Edwards, Grand Dragon of Texas for the American White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, said the rally will help get the word out about the vote. He said his group, which won’t be wearing its white robes or hoods today, plans to keep the gathering peaceful and refrain from shouting racial epithets.
“We decided to rally so people would know about the election and come out to vote against the homosexual lifestyle,” Edwards, who lives in San Angelo, said in a telephone interview. “It’s time for Christians to come out of the closet and vote.”
Yeah, “Christians.”
As it happens, the KKK is also having a little rally over in Harper’s Ferry on Saturday – the same day that the Cypress Project will be bringing the community together to restore the property of the two Aldie men who were targeted in an anti-gay hate crime in July. It’s quite a juxtaposition. Which world do you want to live in?
See letter to the Easterner from Scott Cypher
The mask is really slipping now, isn’t it?
It’s tempting to laugh at something like this and dismiss it as delusional – this is a person struggling with personal demons, he isn’t thinking clearly, most people will see this letter as the irrational eruption that it is, etc. You left out the most florid parts – the GLBT community is responsible for abortion? No, I don’t think so. We had something to do with the heterosexual whackjob who murdered little Amish girls? Huh?
Given this editorial, I suspect that the editor of the Easterner regards letters like this as the purveyors of hate exposing themselves for what they are. It’s definitely a good thing for them to expose themselves, but at the same time irrational hate has consequences. People who are emotionally primed for this sort of nonsense sometimes take it as permission to act out.
The best thing, I think, is to not respond directly, but to simply model behavior that provides contrast. That’s what we are doing with the Cypress Project this Saturday, and that’s what the Love Your Neighbor Coalition is doing in Harper’s Ferry at the same time. Letters to the editor should take the same approach.