My take on the gay bashing incident

[dsc]

First, let me say I have no idea which one is telling the truth. But I am very disturbed by the attacks on Mr. Allen and people posting attacks on him by right wing reporters. I am also distrubed by the idea that it is ludricrious that we might be called faggots by people we haven't directly told we are gay.

For the record. There are several ways these people could have known he was gay. Evidently he has gone to events before. He may well have bumperstickers from gay rights organizations on his car, he may be stereotypically gay, he may have mentioned his boyfriend on the cell phone. Heck, I had a fellow teacher at the school I taught in in Cleveland assume I was gay based on where I lived (town not neighborhood). In short, those of us who are gay know damn well that people don't need to hear it from the horse's mouth so to speak to assume we are gay.

Also the reporters, all of whom work for right wing organizations, didn't see the altercation. They didn't hear the altercation. Should Mr. Allen have taken a call at the event? No. But in a swearing contest between an openly gay man and some right wing hack I take the gay man on what was or wasn't disruptive. Frankly, some posters really took a step back in my estimation in that other thread. I know now that some of you evidently think fags must lie and are even less believeable than Fox News reporters. Even when said reporters never say the fight. Thanks for the eye opener. You can rest assured that everything you ever say on this board will be judged by this gay man through those posts.

[helleborient]

1. Attacks on gays....

Come in many ways that are not initiated through verbal exchanges.

A lesbian friend of mine was walking down the street in Chicago with her partner and a woman walked up and punched her partner yelling at her that she knew she was a lesbian.

Regardless of what the Dean supporter did or did not say, calling someone a faggot should not be tolerated, in my opinion.

[cindyw]

2. Here is my take on this.

I cannot personally speak for other people, but I can say my take on this. If the Dean staffer was being disruptive the Gephardt campaign had every right to escort him from the function. Tension between the campaigns are running high. Even if he was not being overtly disruptive, I can see how tensions would flare up between the Gephardt staffers and the Dean guy.

That being said, if the tensions ran so hot that one of the men escorting him out called him a derogatory bigoted name then he was obviously wrong and the Gephardt people should fire him. I find it hard to believe that Gephardt would condone hiring a bigot on his staff, but if it so happens that he did then the man should be fired. Hate and it's association with ignorance should not be tolerated.

Now if the Dean guy is making a false accusation, that is just as disgusting in my opinion. It degrades the efforts to bring attention to real hatred and bigotry.

[helleborient]

3. I agree...

And I think it's important to take your stance cindyw

And none of us in DU have any legitimate reason to make a judgement whether it did or did not happen.

[Cocoa]

4. what do you make of Trippi's decision to publicize this?

I don't see how he could have seen this doing anything other than what it did, which is alter the whole campaign for the worse.

[dsc]

8. So when we are called faggots we should just be quiet

lest it make the tone of the campaign worse? Is that really what you meant to say?

[Cocoa]

9. no

I absolutely did not mean to say that.

edit: I meant to say what I wrote. I was actually interested in how Dean supporters felt about Trippi's decision.

[dsc]

10. Assuming Trippi believed it to be true

then what should he do? If you didn't mean that we should just be quiet about this lest we make the tone of the campaign worse then just what did you mean?

[Cocoa]

11. I guess it hinges on how Trippi could be so sure

Obviously that was a serious charge, I wonder how much investigation Trippi himself did before publishing the letter.

Did he talk to any of the reporters, did he talk to the accused Gephardt staffer, what steps did he take to resolving the thing privately? What exactly was the purpose of publishing the letter?

[dsc]

12. to let people know what had happened

One of my biggest regrets in life is not making a stink when I got bashed back in college. I was too scared to. I also felt, after the police talked to me, that it would do no good. I think that if this is true it should be made public so that no campaign hires that staffer again.

[Cocoa]

14. the difference...

you know what happened to you. Trippi didn't know if it happened to Allen.

[blm]

15. Cocoa is making a good point here.

If it actually happened, then it seems it could easily have been dealt with privately. Why turn it into a part of the campaign?

[dsc]

17. because I for one care

if a candidate who shows off a gay daughter by day has staffed his campaign with homophobic thugs by night.

[cindyw]

18. I just can't believe that a man who embraces the way his daughter

was born, would knowingly hire someone of that ilk or keep someone on his staff, who he believed held this view.

As far as staying silent, I think that anyone who is has this happen to them should always speak out. That being said, I think having Trippi put out the release makes it part of the campaign. Do you think Trippi really thought Gephardt had knowledge of a this man's views if true?

[DrFunkenstein]

20. That Would Make A Great TV Movie

Shows off a gay daughter by day...

Staffs his campaign with homophobic thugs by night.

<>

[dsc]

22. I admit the prose is purple

but I do think it is a fair public issue.

[DrFunkenstein]

24. I Do Enjoy Myself Some Good Purple Prose

Right up there with some blue language!

PS - I'm still not convinced either way. I certainly think there's a distinct possibility, but I am unwilling to go beyond that.

[dsc]

30. It shouild be noted

that the poster I was answering said that even if this were true it was unfair for Trippi to publicise this. That strikes me as just nuts.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

5. RE: firing a bigot on the staff

Kerry just did it to the anti-semite outed in his AZ campaign.

My take on this is that the Dean staffer- for whatever reason- ended up causing the commotion at the event. I would think the least one could do as a representative of another campaign is to remain respectfully quiet and in the background.

[Cocoa]

6. by right-wing reporters, you mean...

all the reporters in the room?

By right-wing organizations, you mean newspapers?

[dsc]

16. There were two, and only two, reporters mentioned

in the piece in the thread. One worked for the Economist which endorsed Bush and the other worked for FNC. yeah I think that is right wing.

[weepy_and_liberal]

7. If he's crying wolf it hurts everybody n/t

[LuminousX]

13. Dean = Bad, other details don't matter

The eagerness to see Dean fall must stem from the same desire to see the matador get gored by the bull, or the racing car spin out of control into a deadly flaming wreck.

I just don't see where all this vitriol comes from. There are candidates I don't like, but when it comes to situations like this, where I will never know the details of what happens, I will always side with the victim, because the victim perceived harm at the very least even if no harm was intended.

Because of lack of evidence, no one should be fired, but an apology should be issued and both campaigns should move beyond it.

[cindyw]

19. Who is talking about Dean himself here?

I don't understand what you said because the story ultimately hurts Gephardt right?

[LuminousX]

21. If only one side is believed

and evidence existed, it would be slightly bad for Gephardt (he can't control every person working for him, bad people are everywhere), but as people in this thread call it, Dean staged it. It was all a big ploy by the Dean folk.

[cindyw]

25. I don't see the possibility of Dean staging this.

If he had done that, he would be a disgusting person and should drop out now. I don't see that as a possibily. The possibility I see, besides Gephardt's staffer being a hateful bigot, is that the staffer got himself into hot water for being rude and decided to come up with a reason to take the heat off himself.

I just don't know what the truth is, but I don't think Dean or Gephardt figure personally into this story.

[SEAburb]

26. What! Then who is responsible for sending the Dean staffer to the event,

to disrupt the event? Is Dean like Bush not responsible for anything, just their handlers are.

[cindyw]

27. Yeah,but don't all the campaigns do this?

The only way Dean would be responsible for this incident were if he knew his people were rude and disruptive and he condoned it. I'm not even ready to accept this to be true. It doesn't matter to me. He's not my first choice. John Kerry should be the nominee, but I can't help but to defend unfair blaming.

[SEAburb]

28. Dean's the only Dem candidate low enough to have a dirty trick

campaign strategy.

[dsc]

29. as every article has noted

this is a common thing that EVERY CAMAPAIGN DOES.

[DemBones DemBones]

23. If you read more articles, you'll see that all the reporters are not

right wing. Here's the story I got from the Des Moines Register:

http://www.dmregister.com/news/stories/c4789004/22641194.html

Hunter Allen, the "openly gay" Dean campaign worker, says that he was "quiet and discreet" when he received a cell phone call while Gephardt was talking and that it lasted "less than a minute."

First reporter:

"But a newspaper reporter, who says he was standing next to Allen, described Allen's behavior as "clearly very provocative," and said he understood why Gephardt staffers sought to remove him.

"If anything transpired, for my money, it was Allen who started it," said Tony Allen-Mills, the Washington, D.C., correspondent for the Sunday Times of London.

Allen-Mills said the Dean staffer was loud, "very distracting," and "at one point his was the only voice you could hear. . . . It looked very much to me that he was being deliberately provocative."

Second reporter:

MSNBC has a tape that shows Lapp (head of the Gephardt campaign in Iowa) guiding Allen away from the reporters. Allen alleges that Lapp shoved him. No shoving is shown on the tape.

Third reporter:

Sally Hawkins with ABC News filed a transcript of the conversation she heard between Lapp and Allen, which included no profanity. Lapp tells Allen he can't get in front of the reporters. Allen denies that he did this. Lapp says "Yes, you were."

Fourth reporter:

"Carl Cameron, the chief political correspondent for Fox News, said he witnessed both confrontations between Allen and Lapp.

"There was no shoving, ever," he said. "There was nothing at all inappropriate." At most, he said, Allen was grabbed by the upper arm and pulled slightly to get him to leave the center."