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IHAMID'Sl
Homophobia and
the militant right
Hatred o f gay men and lesbians permeates a movement that
may have spawned the tragedy in Oklahoma City
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he bomb that ripped apart Oklahoma
City’s federal building killed forever
the illusion that America’s militant
hard right was simply an irrelevant
bunch of nuts who liked to play with
their guns in the woods.
And for many of these groups, paranoia about
the government and worship of the Second Amend
ment go hand in hand with homophobia. Though
gay men and lesbians don’t seem to be the princi
pal targets of the militia movement and other hard
right groups these days, people who track these
groups say hatred of gay men and lesbians is part
of the political philosophy.
“They don’t like what’s going on— they don’t
like the gains minorities have made in the last 20
years. They want to go back at least to the 1950s,”
says Mary Ann Mauney with the Center for Demo
cratic Renewal, an Atlanta-based watchdog group.
The man accused of
the Oklahoma bomb
ing, Timothy McVeigh,
and two men linked to
him, James and Terry
Nichols, allegedly have
ties to the militia move
ment, a group of para
military organizations
that have spread across
the country. There are
176 such groups in the
United States, accord
ing to Danny Welch,
director of Klanwatch,
a Montgomery, Ala.,
group that monitors the
far right.
Though ideology
varies from group to
group and anti-sexual
minority rhetoric is not
a primary force in many
of them, Welch says about 36 to 40 oT the groups
appear to have ties to white supremacist organiza
tions, including the Christian Identity movement,
that openly and passionately hate homosexuals.
“In their rhetoric, Jews are the spawn of the
devil. Whites are the true Israelites. Everyone else
is part of the mud races. And gays and lesbians are
the scum of the earth,” says Welch.
One of the largest and best known of the
militia groups is the Militia of Montana. In its
catalog the group offers a videotape entitled Janet
(Butch) Reno, claiming the attorney general is a
“flaming lesbian” who was “caught in the act” by
police officers.
The catalog also features a book called Big
Sister Is Watching You, which claims that a con
spiracy of women, led by Hillary Rodham Clinton,
runs the country. These women are “lesbians, sex
perverts, child molester advocates, Christian hat
ers and the most doctrinaire of Communists.”
Christine Kaufmann, director of the Montana
Human Rights Network, says the militia often
uses anti-sexual minority rhetoric as a recruiting
tool, attracting members by vowing to oppose
lesbian and gay rights.
One of the forerunners of the militia move
ment was the Christian Patriot movement, con
centrated in the Pacific Northwest. During the
fight over an anti-sexual minority rights initiative
sponsored by the Oregon Citizens Alliance, Rich
T
IPERSIANRUGSi
ard Flowers, a leader of a Christian Patriot group,
is alleged to have made the following statement:
“God created man for woman. The [OCA) has
a good start on the homo issue, but I don’t think
they’ve gone far enough. The Bible says to stone
them, but you really wouldn’t need to shoot too
many of them to get the point across.”
Though the OCA went out of its way to dis
tance itself from more militant right-wing groups,
those groups were active in the campaign to
approve the initiative, says Donna Red Wing, a
Portland activist and national field director for the
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
Cobb County, Ga., where commissioners ap
proved a resolution discriminatory to gay men
and lesbians almost two years ago, is a hotbed of
far-right activity. According to a recent study by
the Neighbors Network, which monitors the ac
tivities of right-wing groups in Georgia, perhaps
as many as two dozen
such groups operate in
the county.
Among their num
ber are Christian Recon-
structionists, who advo
cate a return to punish
ments outlined in the
Old Testament’s legal
code— including the
death penalty for sod
omy. The Reconstruc
tionists banded with the
county’s conservative
churches in support of
the resolution, and its
author, Commissioner
Gordon Wysong, was
the featured speaker at
an event the group spon
sored.
But, while there is
plenty of evidence that
the rhetoric of the militant right advocates hatred
of sexual minorities, the question is to what de
gree those attitudes translate into a clear and
present danger for gay men and lesbians— and the
organizations that represent their interests.
“I think there is always cause for concern
when you mix bigotry and violence,” says Eric
Ward, associate director of the Seattle-based
Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harass
ment. “I don’t think people should be in a panic.
But I think it shows why it is so important to speak
up when we see people being singled out because
they are different.”
Perhaps more than most, gay men and les
bians in Oregon are aware of the potential for
violence. During the fight over Ballot Mea
sure 9, two people were killed in a firebombing
that was linked to neo-Nazi skinheads. Red
Wing, whose house was broken into during
the initiative controversy, recently discovered
that her name and home address, along with
those of other sexual minority activists, were
circulating on com puter bulletin boards oper
ated by the militant right.
“ I don’t want to seem paranoid, but I hope
w e’re all careful,” says Red Wing. “Probably
most neo-N azis a re n ’t going to blow up
people’s homes. But it only takes one.”
Or a handful, such as those who created the
havoc in Oklahoma City.
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