10 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

NOVEMBER 22, 1996

SPEAK OUT

TV was on trial, but homophobia was the killer

by Mubarak S. Dahir

The verdict is in: Talk television is sometimes trashy and sensational and exploitive and unethical. TV is guilty.

This seems to be the judgment—both from the court of law and the court of public opinion on the infamous killing in what has become commonly known as the Jenny Jones Show murder case

What is so disturbing about this caseboth in the court of law and in the court of public opinion-is that the wrong person was painted as the victim, and the wrong party was put on trial.

In the favored version of this tragic drama, as argued by the killer's lawyers and as depicted over and over again in the media, Jonathan Schmitz was the victim of a sleazy talk show ambush when he appeared on the Jenny Jones Show and was unexpectedly told that another man, Scott Amedure, was his secret admirer. This public humiliation so tortured Schmitz, the story goes, that three days later it compelled him to buy a shotgun, drive to Amedure's home, and shoot Amedure to death.

In this popularized account of events, poor Jonathan Schmitz is the casualty of an irresponsible television talk show industry run amok. That's certainly the theme Schmitz's lawyers counted on in the trial, and it is the one that has overwhelmingly dominated the public discussion of this case.

But by focusing all of our attention on the culpability of talk television, we have conveniently neglected to examine the real issue behind this crime: Homophobia.

After the jury delivered its second-degree murder finding (rather than the first-degree murder verdict the prosecution had sought), juror Joyce O'Brien summed it up best: "I don't think homosexuality entered into our discussion whatsoever."

And that's precisely the problem.

It is difficult to imagine any other set of circumstances where we would collectively ignore the core of the problem in a murder trial.

"If a black person had been murdered because a white person found it awful to be admired by him, or if a Jewish person had been killed because an anti-Semite dared to have a crush on him, most of us would not

have a problem discussing how horrible the murder was," said Jeffrey Montgomery, president of the Triangle Foundation, a Detroitbased gay and lesbian advocacy group which closely followed the trial in a nearby suburb. "But we're raised in this society to accept that the gay factor puts the issue into a different realm."

The defense obviously banked on the same belief, cleverly hedging its bet that the jury would empathize with Schmitz's "humiliation."

Few have bothered to stop and ask: What's so humiliating about having a gay admirer? The reason this question isn't considered, much less discussed, is because while the majority of heterosexuals will profess not to "condone" Schmitz's act of murder, it is taken for granted they can "understand" his feelings.

As the prosecutor said of the trial and its verdict: "We had a more compelling case with the facts. The defense had a more compelling case for making jurors feel sorry [for Schmitz]"

THE OPEN PRAIRIE by Joe Noover!

Christine Quinn, executive director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, put it bluntly when she said, "It's beyond any reasonable thought that embarrassment is justification for murdering another person."

But the tactic is nothing new. Indeed, it is so commonly used to devalue the lives of gay people that activists have even coined a term for it: the "homosexual panic" defense.

All of this sadly confirms what we instinctively know from our daily experiences: That being called gay is still the worst insult in our society, and that a gay person's life is worth less than a straight person's insecurities.

In the national psyche, talk TV is still the culprit and Jonathan Schmitz is still the victim.

But in reality, Jonathan Schmitz is a killer. Scott Amedure is dead. And homophobia was the murder weapon.

Mubarak S. Dahir is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Email: oprairie@visi.com

Web Site:

http://www.visi.com/-oprairie

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A photo caption on Page 6 of the October 25 issue misidentified one person. The three people shown are Sile Singleton, left; Kenneth Perry, center, and Kevin Wilds, right. In the November 8 issue, a Page 2 story on an AIDS benefit incorrectly stated that the AIDS Taskforce of Cleveland received over $200,000 from September's AIDS Walk. That amount is the total raised by the event, which was divided among nine agencies, including the Taskforce.

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