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4- OUT IN THE MOUNTAINS — JUNE 1999

Reflections on the Littleton Massacre

BY HUGH Covua

lowed the recent killing spree
at Columbine High School in
Littleton, Colorado, news ana-
lysts, civic leaders, and politi-
cians alike pointed fingers in
every direction as they struggled
to explain it. Violent movies,
video games, the Internet, and
alternative music all came under
fire (pardon the metaphor), with
the most attention paid to
weapons availability and gun
control (or lack thereof).

At some point, I knew, the
religious right would probably
try to pin at least some of the
blame on homosexuality; after
all, they’ve made gays and les-

1 n the days and weeks that fol-

bians scapegoats for nearly every
other tragedy befalling our coun-
try. Sure enough, protesters at
some of the memorials for
Littleton victims carried signs
with slogans such as_ “Fags
Killed Them.”

Then, while standing in the
checkout line at a supermarket
recently, I noticed a National
Enquirer headline proclaiming
inside information about Klebold
and Harris and “the gay secret
that made them kill.” Even if
Klebold and Harris were gay, this
one factor in their lives would
hardly have been sufficient to
transform them into the homici-
dal maniacs they became.

However, when you consider
the harassment and persecution

they faced daily from their peers
at Columbine High School, their
desperation becomes a bit more
understandable. Even afier their
deaths, students openly — and at

have pushed Klebold and Harris
over the edge. It’s the same
vicious teasing and taunting that
brings many gay, lesbian, bisexu-
al, transgendered, and sometimes
even straight teenagers to consid-
er suicide. How they perceive
themselves is quite ofien beside
the point; it’s how they are per-
ceived -by their classmates that

Out in the Mountains

times proudly — dismissed
Klebold and Harris as “freaks”
and “faggots.” One woman even
described them as “pretty much
disposable people.”

Such persecution may well

No Joy in Jenny Jones Verdict

BY LAURA MILLER

On May 7, I999, the jurors in
the infamous Jenny Jones case
awarded 25 million dollars to the
family of Scott Amedure, the gay
man who was shot by his “secret
crush,” Jonathan Schmitz, after
revealing his feelings for Schmitz
on The Jenny Jones Show. (The
“secret crush” episode was never
aired.)

After only seven hours of

deliberation, the jury found the .

show to have been negligent in
inviting Schmitz onto the show to
meet his secret admirer without

telling him that the admirer was a

man. Schmitz, who had a’well-
documented history of emotional
problems, shot and killed
Amedure three days after the tap-
ing of the episode, and was later
convicted of second-degree mur-
der.'As the Amedures’ attorney
explained the case to the jury, the
show “solicited a victim. They
picked a murderer and provided a
motive. They did everything in
this case except pull the trigger.”

So a gay man’s family walks
away with $25 million as a result
of anti-gay violence — a great
victory for the GLBT communi-
ty. Or is it?

One obvious criticism of the
verdict has already been made: it
may have a “chilling effect” on
the First Amendment. In other
words, shows like The Jenny

Jones Show may be less likely to
put on shows on “controversial”
topics such as same-sex crushes
if they are afraid of being sued
when violence results. On one
hand, the “secret crush” episode
may have been trying to exploit
gay people, to treat them as
freaks for the purpose of enter-
tainment. But on the other hand,
Jenny Jones may have intended
the episode as a way of being
more inclusive, as a way of edu-
cating the public not to assume
that all crushes are heterosexual.
I fear that this verdict may ulti-
mately discourage talk-show
hosts who‘ are actually gay-
friendly and are acting with the
best of intentions.

More importantly, as a symbol
I fear that the verdict does more
harm than good. Schmitz was
convicted of second-degree
rather than first-degree murder
and Amedure’s family was
awarded this verdict because the
juriestin both cases believed that
The Jenny Jones Show shared
responsibility for the murder. To
be sure, part of the reason the
juries made such findings was
that Schmitz was so obviously
mentally disturbed that the show
should have known better than to
embarrass him in this manner.

However, both of the juries
also seem to have been operating
on the assumption that, for a het-
erosexual man, it is so humiliat-

  
  

 ‘

ing to be found sexually attrac-
tive by another man, that it is

foreseeable or even justified for

the heterosexual man to react
with violence.

It was not long ago that a man
who murdered his wife or her
lover upon finding them in bed
together could basically be
excused on the theory that,
because his wife was his proper-
ty, the act of adultery was so
provocative and intrusive that he
could not be held frilly responsi-
ble for his actions.

It was also not so long ago that
rape victims who pressed charges
would be interrogated about their
own sexual behavior, their flirta-
tiousness, or their manner of
dress as if something they did
“provoked” the rapist.

The underlying message of
the Jenny Jones verdict is exactly
the same as the one transmitted
by these old criminal cases —
that a heterosexual man cannot
be expected to control himself
when his sexuality is threatened
or aroused. I think we can expect
better of heterosexual men, and I
look forward to the day when
violence, sexism," and homopho-
bia are no longer dismissed as
“understandable.”

So I’m not jumping for joy
overthis verdict, and I don’t think
any of us should be. As much as I
detest daytime talk shows, I’m
with Jenny on this one. V

matters. That simple bit of
teenage reality forms the basis of
peer pressure, and it’s the root of
all evil as soon as you set foot on
high school (and most college)
campuses. V ‘

Even so, diehard homophobes .

assert that gayness in and of itself
leads young people to contem-
plate suicide. This seems in keep-
ing with their notion of homosex-
uality as something akin to brain-
washing — it’s a cultish thing to
do, and we’ve all seen the results
of cultish behavior in the mass
suicides of groups like Heaven’s
Gate.

For these reasons, urgent calls
to “save our gay youth from sui-
cide” often fall on deaf ears in the
conservative community. “Save
them from homosexuality first,”
they answer, “and then you’ll
save them from suicide.” In cases
like the Columbine killing, the
conservative right wing is just as
likely to link homosexuality to
violent behavior, despite preva-
lent stereotypes of gay men as
weak, cowardly, effeminate, and
squeamish in the face of vio-
lence. In such equations, the
harassment and persecution often
gets left out of the mix.

This isn’t surprising, since
some of the harassment and per-
secution originates with the reli-
gious right, and they prefer to
maintain an appearance of digni-
fied respectability and tolerance.
Their “love the sinner but hate
the sin” line becomes some sort
of magic mantra capable of main-

taining their innocence despite‘

well-documented violent effects
of their own hate-mongering.

It would be wonderful if we
could stop there and say we’ve
found the source of the problem,
but we can’t and we shouldn’t. To
do so would amount to just so

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much finger-pointing on our part
— the queer version of the
blame-and-scapegoat game. It
also tends to isolate homophobia
as something “other,” as some-
thing clearly and identifiably out-
side of ourselves.

The very notion of internal-
ized homophobia tells us that this
is not so. Most_ of us carry inside

Even after their
deaths, students
openly — and at
times proudly —
dismissed
Klebold and
Harris as
“freaks” and

‘faggots. ”

One woman
even described
them as “pretty
much disposable
people. ”

us at least the vestiges of homo-
phobia. Gay youth understand
this internalized homophobia
quite well. It’s what makes them
so prone to suicidal and risky
behavior. It also contributes
toward making them vulnerable
to the kinds of cultish tendencies
we see in groups like Klebold’s
and Harris’s Trenchcoat Mafia.

In my‘ own activism, I’ve
come in contact with a number of
gay and lesbian young adults.
Quite often, they sport multiple
piercings, dye their hair, and
wear what could be called non-
traditional clothing. Rather than
conform to the “in” crowd at their
schools, they defiantly consort
with the “out” crowd. Even
though this crowd defines itself
in contrast to the “in” crowd, it
exerts similar pressures in terms
of dress and behavior. The social
mechanisms are the same;
they’ve simply been directed
away from the nonn.

When gay youth are excluded
from societally acceptable cults
such" as high school sports teams,

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