anti-NRA hit piece; alleges anti-gay bias.

[AnotherPundit]

SUMMARY: The NRA's annual convention in Reno, Nev., degenerated on Sunday into a session of gay-bashing, with one commentator calling talk show host Rosie O'Donnell as a "freak."


The National Rifle Association's annual convention in Reno, Nev., degenerated on Sunday into a session of gay-bashing, with one commentator referring to anti-gun talk show host Rosie O'Donnell as a "freak" for her recent admission that she's a lesbian.

During a two-hour panel discussion attacking the media for distorting the views of gun-rights proponents, all but one speaker took an opportunity to slam gays and lesbians -- including O'Donnell -- in some manner.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._ridicule_gays

Later in the article it talks about the pink pistols, etc. -- but, still, this is bad, folks. Tar and feathers, essentially.

Original source is apparently www.planetout.com .

[Trevor]

I attended this panel discussion. It was, indeed, an unfortunate display of gay bashing. In particular, Debbie Schlussel's presentation was ridiculous. It is too bad. The NRA needs to be doing some fence-mending here. It is hoped that they do so, the sooner the better.

[WyldOne]

I wanted to wait until someone who was actually there could verify this.

Now, without attempting to change people's politics, I think it is shameful--and politically dangerous--for this to have happened at an NRA convention. I can attest to the fact that one of the biggest stereotypes is that pro-gun people are homophobes/antigay.

I like to break stereotypes, not watch them be fulfilled.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Trevor, about how many people were in attendance at the event and did you agree with Mr. Fleiss's assessment of audience support for the statements being made?

The two remarks that Schussel was making seemed pretty harmless to me (the "girly-man" comment and Rosie O'Donnell being a freak). Did she say something besides that as well or something that puts those comments in a different context?

Hopefully the NRA will do some fence-mending. I don't understand the mentality that says you can't promote RKBA without attacking some completely unrelated issue such as gays, liberals etc. We should be trying to encourage those groups to embrace RKBA; not insulting them to pander to people who already support it.

[4V50 Gary]

While I have no love for gays or lesbians, I bear them no animosity either and in the struggle for Second Amendment freedom, it's irrelevant what race or gender orientation one is. We can neither allow ourselves to be divisive in the face of continual onslaught nor enjoy the luxury of picking and choosing our allies. Indeed, if we are to succed such that our children's children may enjoy the freedoms we now enjoy - and those same freedoms which our forefathers took for granted - we should embrace all who would rally to our colors.

[Nanaimo Barr]

I think we just lost 17 members of our shooting club..... Thanks NRA.. it's not enough that you can't processe a membership in less than 4 months. it's not enough you can't supply training materials, you have to go and alienate memebers and 2nd amend supporters that the media support and listen too.

whats next? a women bashing session??

[Kirk Keller]

Is the NRA or anyone else for that matter, producing a transcript of the event. I'd like to see the surrounding context of the discussion before I make any judgements.

[Byron Quick]

Well, I think Rosie IS a freak...by my opinion doesn't have anything to do with her sexual orientation. I thought she was a freak before she made her lesbian declaration.

The only people's sexual orientations I'm generally concerned with are attractive women.

[Don Gwinn]

Rosie is a freak and it has nothing to do with being gay, but apparently Trevor was there and he agrees that it was two hours of gay bashing. Now, I presume Trevor would not assume that anyone who spoke harshly of Rosie O'Donnel is anti-gay so I can only assume that this is a real problem. Let's be honest; it IS shameful. It means that some of what the media likes to say about the NRA is true. Thanks a lot, guys. The rest of us will have fun cleaning up your mess.

Trevor, would you please give us your take on the session in detail?

[Don Gwinn]

Y'know, I just read the article, and I have to admit it looks like they blew a lot of stuff out of proportion. I didn't know that referring to a wimp as a "girly man" was gay-bashing, for instance. That would make Will and Grace an anti-gay TV show.

But the dork who said that liberals don't want men to date girls obviously has a reality problem. Even that one seems pretty mild to me.

Calling Rosie O'Donnel a freak to point out that she wasn't the "cool" one in her confrontation with Tom Selleck seems fair to me. She is a freak, after all, and she does hold herself out as very hip and cool; she's supposed to be your role model.

The woman who made a comment about the schools "being too worried about how many mommies Heather has to teach civics" was right too. There's only so much time and attention in the day. The more time we spend on sensitivity and multiculturalism indoctrination sessions, the less time we have for math, reading, sciences and history. You could love gay people and still acknowledge the truth in that.

Sounds like someone at Yahoo doesn't like the NRA and was waiting for someone there to say something that confirmed their suspicions. And being the political geniuses that they are, the NRA panelists obliged.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Don Gwinn - That's not a Yahoo article. Yahoo is just reprinting an article from PlanetOut by Steve Fleiss.

I originally felt is was probably a case of a single-issue person looking for discrimination against their cause and finding it and that the author was reaching a bit in some of his examples (like Schussel's comments); but based on Trevor concurring with the author, I'm reevaluating that opinion.

I'd like to hear more about about the meeting from Trevor's perspective - particularly with regard to the comments that were made, how the audience received them and how large the audience was. I'm particularly disappointed that the most moronic comments are coming from a guy who sits on the NRA Board of Directors. The fact that the panel moderator was also on the board doesn't make it look any prettier.

[4V50 Gary]

Yes, Rosie is a freak but should be bashed for her political agenda as opposed to her orientation against the Second Amendment or her hypocrisy. Would love to send her as a "peace" ambassador to the Taliban, Iraq or some headhunter tribe.

[Oleg Volk]

NRA is mostly a function of its members. Some are idiots and most aren't. Many are gay or lesbian or what not. To brand the organization, flawed as it is, as homophobic isn't right.

http://www.a-human-right.com/neighbors.jpg

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Oleg, do you have a link to that picture that could be posted on another forum where this issue came up?

[OF]

Many are gay or lesbian or what not. To brand the organization, flawed as it is, as homophobic isn't right.

I tend to agree. I know several gay men who are NRA members. And I'll bet you a dollar there's almost as high a percentage of gay men in the NRA as there is in the general population.

Not every gay man or woman carries a rainbow plaque around their neck.

- Gabe

[Trevor]

First, the session was taped, so it may appear later on C-Span or some such thing. Transcripts are probably available if you ask. The room was nearly full. My guess (and I emphasize “guess” since I am bad at numbers) is that there were about 200 people in attendance. As to the question of the crowd’s reaction, it was a long rambling session that touched on many points regarding how guns, gunowners, and gun politics are represented in the mass media. So, yes, there were some people who responded enthusiastically to homophobic comments, but this behavior did not come from the entire crowd, nor was it consistent.

The panelists were Kelly Anne (Fitzpatrick) Conway, Grover Norquist, Debbie Schlussel, and Armstrong Williams. The moderator was Susan Howard.

Conway made some good remarks about the pitfalls of polling. Her thesis was that polling is not to be trusted because it is readily manipulated by how questions are asked. Since polling results are easily twisted to suit an agenda and not an objective analysis of an issue, Conway asserted that people should not use polling results to support their causes. Nevertheless, earlier in her speech, Conway did state that polls indicate that most Americans do not care about gay politics. Here, I would have preferred that Conway had followed her own advice on this matter.

Grover Norquist gave a presentation about how gunowners can effectively interact with the media. He gave some good tips. For instance, he advised us on how to use talk radio call-in shows and letters to the editor sections (of print publications) as a way to promote pro-Second Amendment views. The quasi-homophobic remark I recall him making was a lame attempt at humor. He said something about gunowners not needing “gunowner pride parades” as gays use gay pride parades to promote their interests. The joke did elicit some chuckles. (Come to think of it, gunowner pride parades are probably a good idea.)

Norquist pointed out that gunowners are a part of a “leave me alone” coalition of political activists who want less government interference in their lives. He included in this group property rights activists and people who seek lower taxes. FWIW, I see gays as potentially a part of this group too since they seek a zone of privacy around their lives. Granted, not all gay activists are of this ilk, but the conservative writer Andrew Sullivan, who is gay, would probably agree with Norquist on many of his ideas. It is too bad that Norquist missed an opportunity to make this connection apparent.

Armstrong Williams, who spoke last, gave a brief but rousing speech about how he grew up in South Carolina cherishing his right to bear arms, and how he will not let that appreciation go now while he lives in anti-gun Washington D.C. Williams is a great speaker. I do not remember him making any anti-gay remarks. As many of you may know, Williams is a conservative Christian whose religious views are a vital part of his politics. I am not quite in the same religious camp as Williams, but I admire his passion. The crowd did too since Williams received a standing ovation.

I have saved the most questionable speaker for last. Debbie Schlussel spoke third (between Norquist and Williams). She presented a rambling, overlong (at least forty minutes, frankly, I stopped counting about then), and poorly organized speech full of personal attacks on anti-gun celebrities and littered with homophobic remarks. I agree that, in writing, the Jude Law remark does not sound that bad, but the way she said it was spiteful and ugly. Yes, she did spend an inordinate amount of time bashing Rosie O’Donnell. I do not agree with O’Donnell, but the attacks on her, especially regarding her personal life, are unwarranted because we, as gunowners, do have the facts and logic on our side. We do not need to stoop to personal attacks, as the anti-gun folks do when they bash gunowners. (Kelly Anne Conway had some good examples of this type of bias when the media portrays gunowners as ignorant, uncouth, and untrustworthy.)

I would like to see from Debbie Schlussel a more logical analysis of media issues and less emotional pontificating delivered via personal attacks on people with whom she does not agree. To Schlussel’s credit, she did mention her family, who are Holocaust survivors, and how her grandfather taught her to appreciate firearms as an edge against such tragedy befalling a group of people again. Now, is not this matter also what the Pink Pistols is about? After all, the Nazi death camps not only held Jews and Gypsies but homosexuals too.

Let me make it clear that I consider the events described above as an unfortunate but not completely damaging problem. The Planet Out article did mention the Pink Pistols and that the group’s representative was well received at the convention. If NRA is to grow to five million members and beyond, the organization will need to consider that, as it does become a big tent for the interests of America’s gunowners, there will be some issues on which we will have to agree to disagree. The primary goal is the protection and restoration of our Second Amendment rights. Other issues such as abortion, taxes (when they do not relate to firearms, ammunition, or the shooting sports), personal adult sexuality, and many others need to be left outside the tent. This controversy is a part of the growing pains required to reach that goal.

[davidr]

Hey, it's David Rostcheck (davidr) from the Pink Pistols. Very good thread; someone sent the link over to PinkPistols and it really helped us figure out what happened and what didn't. I don't blame the messenger - Steve Fleiss is a stand-up kind of reporter; he wrote what he saw, he at least had us showing the other side. I think that there is a bias at the editorial level in what gets reported (we don't get many articles like "Gay gun group praised in gun press", even though that happens and is just as interesting if not so as this story and lends a much more accurate picture of how tolerant most shooters really are).

Obviously this sort of thing isn't good for public perception of shooters and people should think before they make inappropriate comments in public (D-U-H). But if I were a spokesman for the NRA, I'd release a statement like this and kill the whole thing quickly by taking the wind out of the press sails:

"I didn't see the panel myself so I can't comment directly on what the panelist, Ms. Schlussel, said or didn't say, although I have been told some of her remarks may have been inappropriate. However, let me articulate what general policies of the NRA are and have always been. The National Rifle Association exists to defend the civil rights of American citizens. We are not a homophobic organization and do not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or any other irrelevant factor. We have four and a half million Americans as members, many of whom are gay. Our members certainly do not all agree on everything, but we stand united in our defense of the Constitutional Rights of Americans of every sort."

There you go; that kills it dead. It's true, and what can they say? You just quote parts of the statement at the press until they go away. Let's see if our leaders are smart enough to figure that out...

[CastleBravo]

I wouldn't call that an anti-NRA hit piece. I wouldn't call it proof of pervasive anti-gay bias in the NRA, either. But let's be honest with ourselves here. The NRA leadership screwed up by having someone who at best can't keep their foot out of their mouth and at worst has an anti-gay bias and doesn't have the sense to keep it to themselves. Remember, the NRA is a political organization that exists to produce concrete, narrowly-defined political results; it isn't a right-wing comedy club. :barf:

You'd think that after decades of being stereotyped as a bunch of paranoid future spree killers, redneck Bambi-blasters and neo-Nazis they'd have the sense to not attack Rosie in such inept fashon. I could spend hours blasting Rosie's politics with rhetorical nuclear weapons without going to the low ground for cheap laughs.

[CastleBravo]

Oh yeah, welcome to TFL David!

[OF]

Welcome to TFL, David!

- Gabe

[madkiwi]

That whole episode was pretty unnecessary. Why would anyone want to give antis a new way to attack gun owners by making us look like homophobic bigots?

In our March Instructor class (held in South San Francisco) my Training Counselor put it in perspective. He said any time he taught a Basic Pistol class anywhere near San Francisco at least 70% of the attendees were from San Francisco, and a goodly number of those were gay. He felt it was a positive sign, because any firearm owner sooner or later becomes a political one due to the discrimination we face. His attitude? It did not matter what the person did, as long as he or she was not a criminal. A person seeking training, black or white, gay or straight, is a good person.

I hope this dies down quickly enough. It is sad that stupid homophobes are everywhere, but one would hope the actions of a few idiots are not seen as being representative of the NRA. It sure isn't the way I feel about the issue.

Madkiwi

[WyldOne]

Holy crap, someone that I met in real life has found TFL What next?

Hey David; it's Denise

[D.W. Drang]

Nanaimo Barr:

Thanks NRA.. ...you have to go and alienate memebers and 2nd amend supporters that the media support and listen too.

madkiwi:

Why would anyone want to give antis a new way to attack gun owners by making us look like homophobic bigots?

So, just who at NRA HQ is in charge of conducting an in-depth background check on people who MIGHT be speaking at NRA events to ensure they don't say anything embarassing?
ONE person gets up and exposes her stupidity to the universe and you act like SHE was speaking OFFICIAL POLICY, handed down to her by, er, Moses...

It would have been nice if the moderator had been awake and jumped on this issue at the time "Sorry, you're out of time you narrow minded bigot", and I expect that in future moderators will be briefed to watch for potentialy explosive remarks and what to do about them.
And I expect a statement to the effect of "She was speaking for herself, not the other 4 million+ members" to be released. Not that the pres will pay any attention--I'm amazed this is the ONLY negative press. (Well, there was that small-minded ad hominem crap on Comedy Central...)

[WyldOne]

ONE person gets up and exposes her stupidity to the universe and you act like SHE was speaking OFFICIAL POLICY, handed down to her by, er, Moses...

LOL @ Moses reference

I think one of the primary problems is that this occurred at the NRA National Convention; it wasn't just some random speech. Therefore, it could easily be interpreted from both sides of the issues, as her speaking on behalf of the NRA.

As one of the nation's most powerful lobbying groups, you bet the NRA had better be extra careful about who speaks at their officially sanctioned meetings. In fact, they should be quite vigilant about who speaks "as a representative of the NRA" ever.

This is an uphill battle, and slip-ups such as this only serve to make it far worse than it needs to be.

[Nanaimo Barr]

lets see.. NRA convention, NRA Panel, NRA Moderator, NRA Member, NRA Audience, Silence from the NRA leadership...

can we hand the NRA some bad press??

I knew we could...