Gay Violence: NO!

Last Friday night, a crowd in the Castro chased some street preachers out of the 'hood, and the riot squad had to escort them out in force, for protection. An ominous scene:

Joe Jervis says:

Over the weekend the story got major play on right-wing and Christianist blogs as another example (like in Palm Springs) of how inherently violent and intolerant gay people supposedly are. I'm not at ALL buying that things went like the Justice House people claim, but these confrontations are definitely escalating. Ugly and uglier.

I'm really worried about where this is heading. Somebody is going to get killed and we're all going to lose. I'm pissed, we're all fucking pissed, but this is going to a bad place. And I say that knowing that if I had been in the Castro on Friday night, I probably would have been right there in it. We've got the moral upper hand in this fight and every day more and more people see that. But we have GOT to keep these things peaceful. Yell, fuck yeah, YELL. But don't touch. Don't hit. Don't throw. Please.

Andrew Sullivan says:

Some of the fringe elements in the gay community risk undoing the massive, positive wave of peaceful protest this weekend with intolerance and even violence. Cut it out, morons. It's sickening. Christians - even Christianists, who seek to impose their religious convictions into laws that would actively punish gay couples - nonetheless have First Amendment rights that must be respected at all times.

What I say: Ditto to all the above. Look guys, it's a symbolic battle we're fighting here, not a physical one. I'm mad as hell too, but I know lashing out physically will only hurt us, not help us. It's not cool. It sucks. So DON'T DO IT. Use your big head, sober up, and channel that energy into what will help us and all Americans in the struggle for equality. Be men, not ugly babies.

Yeah, our rights are delayed, and most unjustly. But you ain't hurting that much, to get violent over it. We are all still going to our jobs every day, paying the bills, lounging on the sofa and watching TV at night, hanging with our friends, all the comfortable routines of modern life.

Meanwhile, FIVE MILLION people have died over in the Congo, and more every day, in a brutal decade of genocide. Do you know about that? Do you care? In a situation like that, retaliatory violence for self-defense might be justified. But that's not what's happening here, not by a long shot.

So let's put things in perspective, folks. Peaceful, nonviolent protests are fine. Anything more is just plain stupid. Period.

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.

--Martin Luther King