RSS
Home
Would we still care if the Fort Hood shootings took place at a gay bar or pro-choice rally?
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
You have to wonder if the United States or even the world at large would be as angry or upset about the Fort Hood shootings if they had happened at, say, a gay bar or an abortion clinic.
There's no getting around the obvious: the shootings took place on a U.S. military base involving U.S. military personnel - and it was all caused by a Muslim who was also of Middle Eastern decent. No low-paid writer in Hollywood or Bollywood could have come up with that scenario and kept his job. A script calling for a shooter named Hasan who is Muslim? The outrage would be palpable and possibly dangerous. Someone going nuts on a military base? There's no originality in that script idea. Combine Islam, patriotism, psychology, Texas and a hint of "The Ballad of the Green Berets" playing in the background? Gosh, even Syfy would pass on that script, and they tend to put just about anything on television.
Yet the fact that what happened could not have been pulled from any politically-correct script out there makes it all the more 'unbelievable', as if such a concept exists anymore. But what if someone like Hasan, the alleged shooter, had carried out his dastardly deed at a more 'believable' setting, like a Gay Pride parade or a Roe v. Wade rally?
Truth is, if we were talking about dead gays and their supporters or dead liberals who believe in choice, everyone,particularly the media and the internet (not one in the same), would have probably moved on by now. Sure, President Obama might have made a statement and First Lady Michelle may have flown in to meet with the survivors. But rest assured, dead liberals (we assume people who are pro-choice are liberal, as in 'liberators', as Barbra Streisand so eloquently put it once) just don't get much sympathy in this country. Liberals like myself are often pointed to as the ones who benefit most from the actions of the more 'traditional' Americans who are willing to fight all over the world for my freedom. Somehow, we liberals don't count (even though I am a U.S. military veteran) as much as 'real Americans'. If all the victims of a disturbed Muslim just happened to be gay or forward-thinking, this whole story would have, honestly, probably died by now, just about the time as the last victims to die were about to pass. That's just how it is. Just because you go violently or unnecessarily doesn't mean your life or your death is newsworthy.
And so I pause for a moment and wonder: Were any of the dead at Fort Hood gay? Were any of them liberals? Were any of them opposed to the wars we as a country are still curiously defending almost ten years after they started? We'll probably never know any of the dead's true political agenda. In today's media, even on CNN, a victim who just happened to be gay or liberal doesn't seem very noteworthy. Maybe that's because in the 21st Century, it's still seen as more than just a bit disgusting that someone actually had homosexual or liberal tendencies. Just short of becoming really famous, my homosexual and liberal tendencies may not be brought up at my funeral. Even CNN might find such information to be irrelevant, should they be in attendance.
Hopefully, the world won't find my military service to be irrelevant, but given that after five years, the U.S. Army saw me unfit for duty because of my tendencies, it might well have all been in vain. My service to my country, that is. And possibly all I stand for. Guess I won't find out until I'm gone.
Happy Veterans Day. Love and Kisses, Sammy
