Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying, only the killers of gay children deserve the death penalty.
Actually I’m not saying that at all, I was simply engaged in a little hyperbole. There is nothing that could make me support the death penalty. But the death penalty is not the subject of this thread, so let’s not continue the hijack.
But yes, this really ought to be a rallying cry for defeating homophobia. It shouldn’t have to be; we really shouldn’t need rallying cries for defeating irrationality. However, if rallying cry we need, then rallying cry let this be. Let the death of a three year-old child at the hands of a parent who was horrified that the child might turn out to be gay be the rallying cry for ending homophobia.
Well, to pick at the nits, it’s evidence that this is a seriously sick motherfucker and nothing else. It’s not “evidence” of what you think, I think or **matt **thinks or of the general zeitgiest towards homosexuality. If it was a large, socially sanctioned group of people killing children for suspicion of gayness, then it might be evidence of a troublesome social ill. One person is not a social. I can understand that things hit closer to home when they’re, well, close to home, but **duffer **does have a point.
So I think that homophobia is a serious social ill? Yes, I do. But this case is hardly conclusive evidence of that.
And, lest I seem to be defending the bastard, let me reiterate that he’s a sick fuck who, if the gods are just, will soon be living a long incarcerated life and learning first hand what homosexual rape is like. There’s Karma for you.
Trying not to begin this sentence with an “um”, but I’d say that a man who beats and abuses his toddler son to death for any reason does it because he’s a sick fuck, and it wouldn’t make that much difference whether homophobia is a troublesome social ill or not. Frankly, anyone who thinks a 2-year-old child has a meaningfully defined sexuality wants his fucking head examined, IMHO, though I’m not an expert in the field.
The first analogy is inexact. Sharpening the focus a little, if an adult man kills a black toddler, the issue is not black rights but sick fucks who kill toddlers. The second? Decry female genital mutilation because it is an abominable act, assuredly, but is it actually misogyny? If so, a distressing number of older women in the countries where it’s performed are complicit in misogyny. Say rather that a culture that mandates the mutilation of female genitals has got some seriously twisted ideas about female sexuality and a stupid and vile rite of passage for its adolescent girls. No need to cry “misogyny” when there is already some specific evil to oppose.
If matt_mcl or Otto identify with, as gay adult men, a toddler whose homosexuality almost certainly existed only in the diseased mind of the sick fuck who murdered him, I think they have what’s termed “issues”. Otherwise, agreed; indignation is the more easily aroused when it’s your own ox that is being gored.
I’m sure those two can speak for themselves, but I’d say what they identify with is the kid’s brutal death because the sick fuck was a raging homophobe, that it represents all the sick fucks out there who’d gladly kill anyone they think is queer.
That’s not an issue, it’s another reminder of the threat they live with every day just because of who they are.
That is understandable, ETF. But doesn’t the way Otto framed it at least teeter toward the complaint that many of their otherwise sympathetic opposition have — namely, that they are focused too narrowly on their own interests? I’m not saying that I think that, but that there are people who do think that, and that saying things like you will consider changing your mind about a fundamental issue solely on the basis of its impact on you alone merely serves to isolate, rather than integrate, your cause. I’m sure that that was not Otto’s intention. Nevertheless, at this point, he ought to retract or rephrase what he said and move on. This should not be a rallying cry against homophobia, but a rallying cry against all tyranny and hate. Doesn’t it make sense that people who seek inclusion ought not to exercise exclusion?
Well, yes, actually. It IS misogyny. To claim that women can’t be misogynistic is to not understand human nature very well. There are many, many homophobic homosexuals (look at people like Arthur Finkelstein or whoever that very anti-gay Congressman who just resigned because he was outed was) and there are many, many misogynistic women. Any woman who lives in a misogynistic society and buys into the general cultural views on women is as misogynistic as the society involved.
Don’t you think there’s just an itty bitty bit of irony in you criticizing someone for using a tragedy to advocate their pet issue, and then using the word “tyranny” to describe brutal child abuse?
I really hate this logic. Is this how it’s going to work now? Every time anyone posts anything in the pit someone else swoops in and says “Oh yeah why didn’t you post when a vaguely similar event happened six months ago?!?”
We pit stuff that affects us personally. Otto is free to post about a child being killed as a result of homophobia, and I’ll feel free to post if a Sunday school teacher is murdered for being a Christian. And we’ll read each others posts, commiserate, and the world will keep on turning.
Right, but I think very few people would use the word to describe child abuse. It’s usually used to describe governments and other political entities. I think you know that, but will argue for that usage anyways because it’s your pet.
Prezactly. There is nothing in Otto’s post that suggests he wouldn’t give a shit if the kid wasn’t perceived to be gay; but he WAS perceived to be gay and he was beaten to death because he was perceived to be gay. The gist of his post was that if someone could kill a little kid because he thinks the kid might be gay, the problem of homophobia in our country is out of fucking control.
And the worst of it… you just know that somewhere out there something similar is happening to other kids. Kids whose tragic lives haven’t made the news yet.
We may, one day, cure cancer. But I fear never this one. I feel sick.
It’s not about “identifying” with a toddler. It’s about a brutal hate crime. A person was killed because of another person’s loathing of homosexuality. How old does the victim of an anti-gay attack have to be before it’s all right to decry the homophobia that motivated it?
Why is it okay to wish even this particular villain shoud suffer from a crime? Where does that lead you in the judicial/punitive realm? What should happen to/for the person who “treats him the same way” while he’s incarcerated? Should that person be released because he did something good? What if that person’s incarcerated for a similar offense?
Or perhaps we could stop with the asinine “let’s hope he gets raped in prison” and similar commments and just get on with deciding what would really be a fit, legal punishment, and one that doesn’t broker us down to his level?
I’m not a fan of the whole hate crime thing, but 15 years just isn’t enough. I’d press for this to be charged as a hate crime to hopefully enhance the penalty. A lot. This is just a damn sad story.
I have thoughts similar to Monty’s. It gets a little creepy to see, in every thread about some horrible crime, somebody cackling and rubbing his hands while they fantasize about rape and brutality in prison. The notion that abusers of children are singled out is, as one person recently pointed out, mostly rumors. Another poster said it “was the most disappointing thing” he’d ever read on SDMB. I do not think I care less for the victims of the crime because I don’t get any solace from contemplating the beating and rape a criminal will get in prison; nor do I think you are more moral or righteous for doing so.
“Good day Lords and Ladies. Perhaps you’ve heard about the gentleman in Florida who ended his young son’s life on the notion that the lad was a dandy. I feel in these situations the death penalty may indeed be warranted, however I understand that reasonable people may disagree. What say you, Dopers?”