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No one with any shred of humanity could remotely sympathize with the behavior of the accused snipers, John Allen Muhammad and his phony "step-son" John Lee Malvo. Nor, I hope, would anyone be tempted to even less violent behaviors than their's just to get even with certain folks they don't like. The very idea of packing a squirt gun filled with India Ink, for example, or, perhaps, with Crazy Glue and stealthily and silently emptying it (out of sight of the hidden camera) in a supermarket that insists on carrying The National Enquirer is a sick idea. Sick, I tell you.
Surely there's another way to approach these recalcitrant supermarkets. The threat of rowdy, embarrassing queer picket lines in their parking lots, perhaps, or asking the store manager to remove this hateful, lying publication lest you be tempted to spread rumors throughout the community about those hypnotic bag boy gang-bangs you stumbled upon in the rear restroom. Certainly no one could blame you for throwing up a little breastwork in the shape of a nasty lie to protect yourself and others from the most vicious anti-gay lies of the 21st century: those spread nationwide by The National Enquirer when it headlined its last issue: "SNIPERS: THEIR SECRET GAY LIFE". Yup, I've had it with the damned National Enquirer. And with the GOP-friendly Star and the Globe and all the rest of their ilk - well, not all of them perhaps. I must admit to a personal fondness for Weekly World News whose fascinating headline once revealed a magnificent truth to me that I'd never before thought possible: "ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS A WOMAN!" Yes, Weekly World News can stay. But back to The National Enquirer, the November 12th issue, to be exact. This ugly little paper has always been a far-right-wing rag, forever trashing celebrities and even newscasters who don't fit into their tight-assed Republican girdles or who refuse to wear their piously crafted GOP chastity belts. The cover's sub-headline purportedly explaining why the sniper's "secret gay life" had "made them kill" could only have been manufactured by gofers for Falwell or by errand boys for Pat Robertson. I was whisked back in mind to 1987, in fact, when I organized an anti-Falwell picket and got him to change his tune by begging a reporter to ask him if he was still spreading his unforgivable lie about AIDS, namely that it was God's punishment for gays. It had become clear by this time that a greater number of heterosexuals than gays had been stricken and Falwell sensed the reporter's trap. "AIDS is God's punishment against America," he replied without skipping a beat. I detested him for that lie too, but at least I felt that an enormous weight had been lifted from gay shoulders.
But now The National Enquirer has manufactured a new smear, one so heinous that I find myself rejecting
a myriad of ugly fantasies about how to respond. Jesus is reported to have said, "Love your enemies, pray for those who despitefully use you." Oh Yeah? Well, I'm sorry Jesus, but in this instance, your advice
doesn't seem very practical. Do I want to pray for the publishers and editors of The National Enquirer?
Well, hold on maybe I will. I'll pray that nobody sends them one of those awful germ-laden killer letters anymore so that they won't have to move again into new offices. And I'll pray that they all go sterile so that such viciousness as they represent will never again be reproduced.
Also on the cover of this November 12th issue is an invite to readers that says: "Exclusive: Killer's Diary Revealed"-as if to say that their so-called "secret gay life" has been recorded on paper by one of them. Thus, one opens to pages 34 - 37 seeking a diary quote verifying the sniper's gay desires. But, natch, it's not to be found. There's nothing even remotely solid in this endless article about their so-called gayness. Only little rumors purportedly filtered through unidentified speculators, in fact, and a singular speculation about possible "latent homosexuality" by a Dr. Andrew Hodges who is suspiciously celebrated by the Enquirer as "a leading forensic psychiatrist and expert on serial killers." I've never heard of this Dr. Hodges. Has he met both suspects? No. In fact, his name could easily be a manufactured one. If it isn't, then our movement activists should immediately petition the American Psychiatric Association to blacklist him as untrustworthy, as has happened in the case of the religious-right's anti-gay favorite, Dr. Paul Cameron who was properly dumped by the American Psychological Association. On the inside, the article is re-titled: "Gay Secret that Made Snipers Kill - A Special Enquirer Report" The cover blurb about the "Killer's Diary" is repeated on page 34. The authors of the article are said to be: John South, Courtney Callahan, Michael Hanrahan, Ellen Goodstein, Tony Brenna, Michelle Caruso, Tom Dinardo, Richard Gooding, Reginald Fitz, Allen Butterfield and Peter Davidson. Why it has taken so many wanna-be reporters to do a 3-page report that is mostly material lifted from mainstream media (and interspersed with a paucity of unsubstantiated anti-gay rumors) is anybody's guess. But my guess may be more on target than that of others since I once worked (1968) in the New York offices of Countrywide Publications. It was there that I first met an editor who was later to become the publisher of SCREW. Prior to his SCREW days, however, he'd edited Hush Hush and The National Mirror, both supermarket tabloids. I observed how he and other Countrywide editors had been instructed to deliberately manufacture fictitious news items, adding pictures, captions and other minutiae that seemed to magnify the "truth" of their falsehoods. An old friend, Bob Amsel, for example, spoofed Countrywide's methods in 1969, when they allowed him to publish an article that pictured Sophia Loren on one page and the Pope staring across at her from the other. Bob titled this amusing article: "Those Ugly Rumors about Sophia and the Pope." Across both pages under the two celebrities photos his caption said: "They had to take separate apartments. Why? What are they trying to hide?" So, being hip to such methods, I'd wager, the lengthy list of the Enquirer's so-called reporters probably was manufactured to give this sleazy tabloid's rumor-mongering some badly-needed weight, as if to say "This article required a great deal of research." Because most of it is mere media-re-hashing, however, I feel comfortable saying, as the Brits often do: Rubbish.
The Enquirer article begins: "Beltway snipers John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo were lovers -
and their gay secret fueled the terrifying rage that left 10 victims dead, the ENQUIRER has learned
exclusively."
Learned exclusively? Far too exclusively, I'd say. Nobody else seems to have learned nearly as much. And what about that so-called "diary" that the tabloid is touting? Almost a week after it published this diary tripe, the police did announce they'd found incriminating evidence of the duo's crimes on their stolen laptop. But a "Dear Diary" with details of their love affair? Please. Unless, of course, John Ashcroft is singing secretly to the Enquirer behind our backs. The National Enquirer knows nothing more about these two bozos than its "reporters" have read in other newspapers. John Muhammad's sister-in-law told pundits on the tube that his ex-wife had divorced him in part because he was a womanizer. He was twice divorced. He'd managed to reproduce a shitload of kids, too, one who was birthed out of wedlock at the time he was only nineteen. His 22-year old son was shown in shadow on the tube telling how he loved his kindly "innocent" dad. Asked why he wouldn't show his face to the public, he replied, "Because there's a lot of ignorancy out there." John Allen Muhammad was not only fascinated with guns, he was a karate buff too and although I'm sure they must exist, I'll admit I've never met a gay man so overwhelmingly obsessed by such pugnacious interests. The gay men I've known, in fact, have not been caught up in the prehistoric warrior role as was John Allen Muhammad. And, lets face it, Islam-to which this sad sack was a convert-does not present a face, as I've known it, that could in any way be called "gay friendly." The first Enquirer "quote" which insists the accused snipers were lovers says: "They told people they were father and son but investigators have found out they were really lovers." This "quote" comes from an unnamed "insider familiar with the case." Who? Don't ask, don't tell. He's just "an insider," OK, OK? Next, Malvo's mother is made to appear to say that she thought there was a sexual relationship between the two males. But did she really say this? No. Well then, who did say it? Another unnamed "family friend." Another unnamed source, an anonymous "pal" at a gym is "quoted" saying the pair had "a gay relationship." Isn't it a gas how The National Enquirer trusts all these nameless people to tell sure truths for the edification of its bamboozled readers? This so-called "pal" is said to have seen some kissing too. Oh sure. In public, at the YMCA, we're expected to believe. An unnamed "top federal officer revealed that authorities are investigating the gay relationship between the two men." I seriously doubt that John Ashcroft spoke even a word to the Enquirer, but I must say nevertheless, that merely fantasizing the Attorney General looking for DNA proof in Malvo's anus brings a smile to my lips. Another quoted shrink whom the Enquirer is pleased to call "a noted Beverly Hills psychiatrist" is a Dr. Carole Lieberman who points out that Muhammad had an obsession with "control over women." I can't think of any gay men I know who has ever had such an obsession, can you? But from her perch 3,000+ miles away she speculates that he solved his problem-losing such women-- by "getting a partner-Malvo-who was much younger and completely dependent on him." But Dr. Lieberman (is she related to Joe?) is never quoted using the "G" word nor the more clinical term, "homosexual." Thank goodness, doc, your reputation should be safe as long as you promise never to talk to The National Enquirer again. How much did they pay you? Finally, we get a name for the last quote: Felix Strozier, Muhammad's partner in a karate school. First, he speculates about Muhammad's thus far unproven links to Muslim terrorists. Then he complains that Muhammad surrounded himself with young boys, and says he was "suspicious of his relationship with young Malvo. They were always whispering to each other and giggling together…The relationship seemed unhealthy." Yes, Mr. Strozier, it was an unhealthy relationship. Any fool knows that. But was it a sexually active homosexual romance? Did you ever see them kiss like that supposed "pal" without a name? I doubt it. Muhammad's ex-wife says she thinks he went crazy because of her, and because she took his kids away. Nobody knows yet what actually drove this demented man. Could he have had latent homosexual desires? What man, I ask you, doesn't -at one time or another? In fact, the singular statement that drove some in the conservative media to denounce Dr. Alfred Kinsey's famous 1948 report on sex was his observation that one out of every three men one passes on the street has had-in adulthood-a homosexual tryst leading to orgasm. And the great American poet of Democracy, Walt Whitman, says, "the germ is in every man." Yup, I agree with Walt. But I have nothing but contempt for The National Enquirer as it attempts to make mountains out of molehills and to blame the snipers' spree on their "gay secret." Even if it should somehow later turn out that the two did get it on, there's one thing I'm sure of: The National Enquirer has-at this point-- had no proof. It has made nothing more than a vicious, hate-mongering guess. |
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