SPEAK OUT

Tell America that killing 'in God's name' happens here, too

by Marvin Liebman

The world was shocked by the assassination of Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by an ultra-religious right-wing Jew. He was murdered "in the name of God" and under the preachings of fundamentalist rabbis whose interpretation of God's word gave him the license to kill.

I was neither shocked nor surprised. There has always existed in Israel-as exists in Iran, in Bosnia, in Ireland, in the United States and throughout the world-extreme religious fundamentalism that calls for the death of the unbelievers who stray from their view of God's teaching.

In 1947, I worked with the Irgun-the armed underground of the right-wing Zionist Revisionists-whose basic philosophy rested in the certainty that God had decreed that a Jewish nation should exist on both sides of the Jordan River. Any man who gives away even a handful of Israeli soil, for whatever reason, does so at his peril. The Revisionists have become the extreme right of the Likud Party. Their inflammatory rhetoric led to the assassination of Rabin and will result in more killings "in the name of God." Extremist clergymen and politics. Sound familiar?

The United States is certainly not immune to violence based on the rhetoric of religious leaders. While hate-based violence against lesbians and gays is a decades-old epidemic, it may at last prove capable of provoking an overdue nationwide debate both moral and political. As in Israel today, the scrutiny of farright religious groups' role in fanning such violence is a good place for that debate to start.

The linkage between anti-gay religious rhetoric and acts of violence is complex, and begs exploration. Parents, Family, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (P-FLAG) is a national organization that wants to expose the connection between hate rhetoric and anti-gay violence. Recently, P-FLAG produced two 30second TV spots which take aim at just this combination. Further justification of its focus comes from a recent Newsweek poll showing 21 percent of all Americans, and 43 percent of evangelical Christians, believe that the gay rights movement is an "incarnation of Satan." Taking this belief to its logical conclusion, lesbians and gays become Satan's agents on earth and must be eradicated "in the name of God."

One of P-FLAG's 30-second ads portrays a teenage girl contemplating suicide with a handgun; the other a young man being beaten to death by a gang of thugs shouting anti-gay slurs. The victim's mother, Nancy Rodriquez, appears at the end of the TV spot saying that the FBI had declared that the murder of her 27-year old son was a hatecrime, a "gay bashing." In a final blow, Rodriquez was fired from her job the moment her involvement in the P-FLAG campaign became public.

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In the ads, the voices of the Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are heard over the film's soundtrack. Robertson is heard saying: "Homosexuality is an abomination... many of those people involved with Adolf Hitler were Satanists; many of them were homosexuals. The two things seem to go together." Falwell simply says, "God hates homosexuality."

Syndicated bigots like Falwell and Robertson, whose Christian Coalition has become the major power-broker in the Republican Party, liberally intersperse their sermons with inflammatory anti-gay tirades. Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) has threatened to take legal action against any station running P-FLAG's TV spots, effectively keeping them off the air.

While criticism of Robertson, Falwell, and their political-religious clones exists, they largely escape scrutiny for their role in inspiring hate crimes "in the name of God." Rev. Mel White was on the right track with his jailhouse hunger strike last spring when he was arrested trying to prevail on Robertson at his CBN headquarters in Virginia. But that protest went largely ignored in the national media as well as the gay press itself.

"Christian," and "family values" hucksters constantly bemoan the influence of TV and Hollywood portrayals of violence. Let the anti-gay religious leaders listen to their own inflammatory rhetoric. Let them understand the violence that can stem from their sanctimonious sermons on Satan and homosexuality. If their followers could muster just a fraction of their outrage at Hollywood in opposition to anti-gay violence, the epidemic of hate violence might gain much of the attention it deserves.

With the proper resources, attaching a stigma to incendiary religious rhetoric becomes quick work. Falwell and Robertson implicate themselves. P-FLAG's ads showing some of their rhetoric deftly make the case that their own words provide the climate in which such acts of violence might proliferate and gain religious sanction.

The case against anti-gay violence can take many tacks. Yet, for too long, the sheer abundance of other pressing issues on the desks of gay political leaders has allowed attention to the issue to lapse. With its far-reaching ravages, hate violence against gays cannot continue to slip from the spotlight. The murder of Rabin in Israel has once again awakened people of conscience around the world to the fact that far-right religious preachings eventually can lead to bloodshed. Perhaps gays in America can awaken our fellow citizens to a similar and equally simple conclusion.

In this month of Christian celebration, we call on Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and all the other professional "Christians"-in the name of their professed Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ-to preach love, not hate; peace, not` violence; and above all, the Golden Rule. ✔

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DECEMBER 8, 1995 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 9

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