JWR Jeff JacobyBen WattenbergRoger Simon
Mona CharenLinda Chavez

Paul Greenberg Larry ElderJonathan S. Tobin
Thomas SowellMUGGERWalter Williams
Don FederCal Thomas
Political Cartoons
Left, Right & Center

Jewish World Review / Nov. 2, 1998 / 12 Mar-Cheshvan, 5759

Don Feder

Don Feder Loving response to a hateful conference

"YOU KILLED MATTHEW SHEPARD," a woman shrieked at me as I walked into a Claremont Institute conference in Los Angeles a week ago. The emotion contorting her face did not approximate compassion.

The conference -- "Making Sense of Homosexuality," co-sponsored by the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) -- was unanimously condemned by the L.A. City Council, picketed by rabid protesters, who invaded its forum at the Biltmore Hotel (verbally assailing those in attendance), and driven from its original venue at the Beverly Hilton.

NARTH is an organization of psychiatrists and psychologists who believe homosexuality is a treatable developmental disorder. Claremont is a think tank composed of what its president, Larry Arnn, calls "natural law conservatives."

Don, a murderer?
The L.A. City Council is comprised of offensive jerks who think with their glands. "These people (Claremont and NARTH) are not just about spewing hate, they are about putting actual lives in danger, mine included," shrilled Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, a lesbian.

The conference was indeed a fearsome affair. Speakers included three MDs, five Ph.D.s, lawyers, legislators, a member of the California advisory panel to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and me.

Its hate-filled rhetoric included the observation by Hadley Arkes, a professor of constitutional law at Amherst College, that the gay-rights movement "shows not the least degree of tolerance for anyone who would call into question, even gently, the rightness of the homosexual life."

Another dangerous demagogue heard from was Eleanor Durham, a Seattle attorney and mother of a second-grader, who explained how activists got a "gay-affirming" curriculum into the city's schools.

Referring to gay marriage, Arkes cautioned, "Marriage cannot be detached from what some might call the 'natural teleology of the body': namely, the inescapable fact that only two people, not three, only a man and a woman, can begat a child." Gasp, how hateful!

The left is determined to squeeze the last ounce of advantage out of the tragic murder of Matthew Shepard. "The constant degrading of homosexuals is exacting a toll in blood," Jonathan Alter writes in Newsweek.

This argument is bizarre. Does Alter actually believe that some yahoo in the hinterlands is saying to himself: "NARTH believes homosexuality is a developmental disorder. Hmmm. I guess that means I'll have to go out and bash a queer."

In December 1997, when a 14-year-old opened fire on a prayer group at his Paducah, Ky., high school (killing three), I don't recall my side blaming those who regularly savage Christian conservatives as a threat to church-state separation. ("The constant degrading of people of faith is taking its toll in blood.")

Following the Shepard tragedy, Professor Robert George, who teaches political theory at Princeton, received an e-mail from a former graduate student, who -- with barely concealed contempt -- wondered when conservatives would denounce the killing and other attacks on gays.

George replied that when Brian Peterson and Amy Grossberg murdered their newborn and the New Jersey prom mom dumped hers in the trash, he didn't ask his liberal friends when the pro-choice crowd was going to get around to rejecting baby-killing.

George, "I paid my liberal friends the courtesy of supposing that, despite what I believe to be their gravely mistaken views about abortion, they no more wish to promote infanticide than I do."

Sad to say, this political good will flows in only one direction.

If the city council and hysterical demonstrators are right (and my hands are bloodstained), how could I have saved Matthew Shepard? By abandoning deeply held beliefs? By rejecting objective evidence and denying reality? By engaging in self-censorship?

The weekend that I was in Los Angeles, Amy Tracy was in Boston. Former press secretary to NOW President Patricia Ireland and an ex-lesbian, Tracy was invited by an evangelical group to speak at a number of area colleges.

Boston College canceled the event. Wellesley organizers were informed that Tracy could only speak if a "Christian" lesbian shared the forum.

What we have here is a conspiracy to deny First Amendment rights. If the left can use the RICO Act against clinic protesters, why can't the right use it against those who harass conferees and pressure hotels and colleges into canceling events?

As Arkes would say: You established the principle. If it applies to us, it applies to you. Are we clear on that?

Up

10/28/98: Professor Death will fit right in at Princeton
10/26/98: Plymouth caves to Pilgrim foes
10/21/98: On '98 election, keep a critical eye on polls
10/19/98: Clinton could yet be 'prosperity president'
10/16/98: Working families -- Dems love 'em (stuffed)
10/09/98: Majoring in 'weirdness'
10/07/98: Friends of Billy Clinton
9/29/98: Letter from ex-soldier highlights defense peril
9/28/98: Answering arguments against impeachment
9/18/98: The nation that doesn't exist
9/14/98: Bubba isn't the only one who should be ashamed
9/11/98: Resolution of Clinton crisis will define national character
9/09/98: We're still just wild about Harry
9/07/98: Mexican banditry didn't end with Pancho Villa
9/02/98: Clinton forgives us!
8/31/98: Ashcroft's plain talking touches responsive chord
8/26/98: Public opinion be damned
8/24/98: Why liberals condone Clinton's lies
8/20/98: Time to move on -- to impeachment
8/12/98: With Bubba in the sexual privacy zone
8/10/98: The truth won't set Clinton free
8/06/98: Truth about Hiroshima is incontrovertible
8/04/98: Clinton not the first hollow president
7/30/98: "Small Soldiers" -- a fractured Vietnam allegory
7/27/98: Crime wave hits hometown
7/22/98: Love in an Internet fishbowl
7/20/98: Ads bring ex-gay movement out of closet
7/15/98: Brian and Amy -- the children of Roe
7/13/98: Why are we scared of obnoxious 'activists?'
7/6/98: Fonda still resists reality
7/1/98: New York blesses domestic partnerships
6/29/98: Teddy and Calvin stood for virtue
6/24/98: Will Clinton betray Taiwan?
6/22/98: Big tobacco? What about big casinos?
6/15/98: Religion -- God for what ails you
6/10/98: Planning Clinton's China itinery
6/8/98: Republicans' Custer offers advice
6/4/98: Oh, Dems Christian-bashers!
6/2/98: Goldwater did conservatives more harm than good
5/27/98: A Clinton-hater confesses
5/15/98: Giuliani's assault on marriage
5/13/98: Hillary knows what's best for everyone
5/11/98: To honor her would not be honorable
5/6/98: Conservative chasm: pragmatism vs. worship of marketplace
5/4/98: Anglo-saxon me
4/29/98: Needle exchange programs are assisted-suicide
4/27/98: Chretien's mission of mercy to Fidel
4/22/98: School-choice is a religious freedom issue
4/20/98: Corporate execs deliver body parts to Beijing
4/14/98: National sales tax --- looks better all the time
4/13/98: The U.N. sinister? Hey, where did that idea come from?
4/8/98: Unions fight workers rights in 226 campaign
3/30/98: Africa's leaders should apologize
3/25/98: GOP shouldn't look to media for advice
3/22/98: You should care about Clinton's 'private life'
3/19/98: Color-coded reading, product of obsessive minds
3/16/98: Amendment will end exile of G-d from our public lives
3/9/98: Havana will break your heart
3/2/98: Vouchers Terrify Teachers' Union
2/25/98: Presidential politics starts at a resort hotel
2/23/98: Hillary's support comes at a price
2/18/98: How many times must we say "no" to gay rights?
2/16/98: Enoch Powell spoke the truth on immigration
2/11/98: Bubba behaving badly
2/9/98: A conservative dissent on the flag-burning amendment
2/5/98: We get the leaders we deserve
2/2/98: Send a signal that could penetrate boardroom doors
1/27/98: State of the president: hollow rhetoric
1/25/98: For Monica's playmate, we have no one to blame but ourselves
1/22/98: At Yale, bet on yarmulke over gown
1/19/98: Commission tackles America's fastest-growing addiction, gambling
1/15/98: Capital punishment and the hard case: no exceptions for Karla Faye Tucker
1/12/98: Partial-birth abortion and the GOP's future: the "big tent" meets truth in advertising
1/8/98: IOLTA: the Left's latest scam to crawl into our pockets
1/5/98: Connect the dots to create a terrorist state
1/1/98: The Unacceptables of 1997: Long may they rave
12/28/97: Hypocrisy is a liberal survival mechanism
12/23/97: Chanukah is no laughing matter
12/22/97: No merry Christmas for persecuted Christians around the world
12/18/97: Bosnia, Haiti, and how not to conduct a foreign policy


©1998, Boston Herald; distributed by Creators Syndicate, Inc.