A work colleague linked to this today. For some reason, more than other stories of this type, it's just left me feeling so sad and angry. I bet those parents think they're such good Christians.
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Comments
Whacking Christians and Tolerance
I am truly sorry that such things do occur. Being the parent of two boys and a girl, all of who are now grown, I know how difficult dealing with teens can be and how screw life can seem to them. It's not easy dealing with teens who find themselves locked in the pressure cooker of being an stuck between being an adult and a child with hormones a-raging and social norms they find confusing being shoved down their throat by peers, teachers, and parents. I've seen kids careen to the edge and have had to sort my own children out more than they care to remember. So the incident described in the article mentioned, while heart rendering, does not surprise me.
What I do find rather annoying is the knee-jerk reaction to immediately blame Christians and Christian values for the incident. I carefully read the piece mentioned and could not find anywhere in it that mentioned that the victim was struck down in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, or that the attacker is using his religion as a defense. For all we know the accused killer was a Muslim, or a Jew or a Buddhist, or, even worse, a Republican. (Oh NO! No a Republican!)
Call me cold and insensitive, call me cruel. Lord knows, having worked in the transgender community in the late '80s and early '90s, I've been called pretty much everything you can imagine and then some and actually defended the TG community on a Christian radio talk show as one of the host's in-studio "guests", (talk about a trip). The one thing I cannot be called is a bigot, someone who uses an unfortunate incident such as mention in the news piece to bash their favorite target group. Now if it comes to past that the killer acted based on his religious convictions, and if the parents come out thumping the Bible chanting, "God Willed it!" I will recant my statement. But until then, let's not use this incident as another excuse for launching a Jihad against the vicious Christians.
Tolerance, after all, is a two way street.
Nancy Cole
P.S. And in case you were wondering, I am not a Christian.
"You may be what you resolve to be."
T.J. Jackson
Brandon McInerney - Nowhere...
It's very likely that he came from a Christian family, but it's more certain that both boys came from homes troubled by violence, drug abuse, and extraordinary inattention to the upbringing of their children. The gun used by the shooter was evidently just lying around at home, both mothers were drug users, both fathers evidently abusive, and Larry King's father in particular blames the school system and everyone in sight for allowing or encouraging his son to be gay, expressing sympathy for the murderer of his son.
Brandon McInerney was a budding White Power / Christian Identity fan of Tom Metzger, a founder of White Aryan Resistance. Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure he was both Christian and white, not to mention vicious and cowardly, too scared of the little "sissy" that this strapping example of white manhood felt compelled to shoot him from behind.
It's hard to imagine a more perfect storm of ignorance and hate.
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/feb/24/it-doesnt-...
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Backstory
The murdered child's family failed him, as well as the parents of the alledged murderer. No one involved in this case seems particularly admirable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_McInerney
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Frivolity and Religion
The lawsuit has been characterized by at least one of the defendants as frivolous. The nature of such multiple-defendant lawsuits is often just a random grab for money. Sue everyone even remotely related to the incident, however tangentially, and just hope someone will make you a settlement offer to drop them from the suit. It's a typical legal strategy, especially when the attorneys are on a contingency-fee arrangement, and the filing fees at court are based on a per-case basis, not the number of defendants. The gay-rights organization has a pretty good argument that their inclusion in the suit is in fact frivolous.
As for religion, there are all flavors of it, both conceptually and in practice. I think we should be as free to judge it as people are to practice it. But, it might be a mistake to generalize. I think you have to look at specifics when judging something. Religion is as religion does, and that is often as much a function of the personal ethics of the practitioner as the precepts of the religion in question. True, some religions promote ignorance and blind obedience of their practitioners by squelching any intellectual discussion on the subject. Others, however, set broad goals and encourage the very best in people, including not only their hearts, but their intellects. And by "others", I don't just mean from among the other religions in the world, great and small, I include the very varied denominations of Christianity.
Of course, lest my liberal credentials be questioned, it needs saying that religion, whether formal, organized, or simply conceptual, is completely optional, and totally unnecessary to being the kind of good person doing good works that some religions like to take the credit for. "Secular humanism" does as fine a job at that as anyone else, and better than most.
The Blame Game
The blame game is so rampant in our culture these days. Lawyers are constantly blitzing the airwaves trying to convince people to file suit and " blame somebody else" If Larry's parents had given him any support than he would not have had to go to the shelter. In reality, the shelter did not kill their son, it was the actions of a violent homophobe who just didn't like gay people. The parents need to take a good hard look in the mirror. The shelter was trying to do what they failed to do. I hope they(the shelter) are completely vindicated.