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about Remembering Matthew Goes Un-Remarked Threats to Free Press Variety 
GayToday's Jack Nichols & Breaking the Silence MCC's Rev. Linda
Beane: "Remember Matt!"
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| By Jack Nichols
 Cocoa Beach, Florida--"The media," says an October 29 essay dispatched by HRC's Wayne Besen, "has a duty to research the accuracy of statements made." Aye, and more.
Wednesday night, while world media--on the evening before John Glenn's return to space—focused on Glenn alone as a topic worthy of Florida's Space Coast-- lesbians and gays gathered 40 strong carrying candles on a downtown Cocoa Beach corner directly across from City Hall, recalling the memory of young Matthew Shepard.
Only a few days before, the vigil organizers had noted, New York's "Free Choice" Doctor John Slepian and nearby Orlando hairdresser, Sabastian Durgins, 26, had both been shot in the head.
In a town of only 12,000 residents there were—last Wednesday night—perhaps upwards of a thousand mainstream journalists who clogged Cocoa Beach streets. They were celeb hunting, however. "Is Leonardo Di Caprio among us?" asked Florida Today's front page, sparking dullard-subscribers' over-imaginative fantasies . Gannett the company partied big-time. Barbara Wa Wa, John F., Jr. et al. On the morning of Glenn's flight there was--in Florida Today's Section A --scarcely mention of any other non-Shuttle-related event. Understandably, The Space Coast's Newspaper therefore relied heavily on Dear Abbey and the Associated Press to help it fill its 'non- John Glenn' columns. In publishing circles, fillers, or unremarkable articles offered for public consumption, are short items that'll help advertising moguls connect their dots. Filler could be, for example, an illuminating dissertation about both cats and turtles such as Thursday's edition of Florida Today so temptingly brandished.
Though notified in advance, the Gannett newspaper had failed to assign either a reporter or a photographer to the beach town's unique GLBT vigil. One reporter called to promise arms-length coverage, but it never materialized. Sadly, therefore, the Space Coast's newspaper of record missed a poignant, if not a significant moment in the history of its community: the public appearance on a downtown street of forty near-rural women and men, suddenly willing to brave the media's cameras. Forty men and women, in other words, brought together by their anger, grief, frustration and a rough and ready eagerness to act.
For each of the persons who showed up, locals knew, were many hundreds who could never bring themselves to brave the media's relentless cameras in such a small town, but who felt as affected as did the keepers of the vigil. In an article published earlier that day, Florida Today had remarked incorrectly on how " 8 gay activists" had picketed Gary Bauer's banquet the night before, when, in fact, there were only two gay activists, one lesbian-feminist and five heterosexually-inclined Free-Choice activists, all of whom united to agree that Gary Bauer poses a hate menace. The Gannett reporter was advised that four of the pickets were employees or sympathizers from Melbourne's Aware Woman Center for Choice. But Florida Today's religion writer, who covered Gary Bauer's banquet talk, told her readers that "Christian faith, traditional family values and patriotism have come under attack by gay rights activists" (a direct quote). Thus, did the conservative Gannett reporter slander gay activists. Such commentary by a major chain's reporter seems to coincide with what Wayne Besen says of media's "ex gays" fad journalism: "fiction has been the norm and the truth has been a casualty," he insists. Amen. Across America there's emerging faster than anyone suspects, an unprecedented commitment to the doing of something concrete in response to Matthew Shepard's cruel death. Voters know that the Religious Right has seized the GOP at its helm, and moderate Republicans are dismayed. They're witness to how their beloved party is now controlled by religious fanatics and fascist kooks. Cocoa Beach's Thursday night demonstration showed this unmistakably. But bourgeois Gannetters missed it. The Cocoa Beach vigil could have showed Florida Today reporters that there are like responses taking place in gay communities all across America—vigils going un-remarked by mega-corporate news publishers— responses in tiny towns and hamlets—thousands upon thousands of people young and old, now become eager to battle tireless killer-climate-bigots such as Gary Bauer. Bob Kunst of Miami Beach's Oral Majority appeared glad for the headline's making of a bigotry banquet--a matter of controversy. It read: "Bauer Speaks While Activists Protest."
The Baptist-Fundamentalist Republican gentry at this banquet had hoped to be perceived as philanthropists providing marginal charity for those who don't abort. But such a genteel hope was quickly dashed by high-profile references in the Florida Today news item about them. Signs were quoted identifying Gary Bauer and his cohorts as the "Christian Reich "and explaining that "Gary Bauer's Bigotry is to Blame," while referring to the hate-climate deaths of Shepard, Slepian and others,
The Cocoa Beach vigil for Matthew Shepard got underway at 7:45 p.m. Wednesday, directly across from the Cocoa Beach City Hall. A number of the vigil attendees met first in a nearby gay pub, Wanna Be's at 231 Minutemen Causeway: Altclub@aol.com --but by 8:p. m. had gathered with others at the corner. Representatives spoke from Miami Beach's Oral Majority, Breaking the Silence Metropolitan Community Church (Cocoa, Florida) and The Space Coast Lesbian and Gay Alliance (Cocoa Beach).
This reporter also advised urging one's political representative to pass hate crime legislation that includes sexual orientation. Oral Majority's Bob Kunst then spoke out against both Religious Right Republican candidate for governor, Jeb Bush -- who is now only a few percentage points ahead of his Democratic rival for Florida's governorship. He also praised hate crimes legislation, saying his organization would throw its support to a newly proposed March on Congress January 6 to demand of representatives that they pass hate crime legislation in the name of Matthew Shepard.
Kunst repeatedly asks candidate Bush to give the lie to the fundamentalists' un-substanciated charges (going un-reported by the media) that Florida's Amendment 9 on the November 3 ballot-- with its equal treatment of men and women under the law and a better deal for persons with physical disabilities-- should be rejected. The fundamentalists claim Amendment 9 is bad because because it could help legalize homosexual marriages. Kunst points out that Bush ought to denounce this simple-minded homo-scare tactic, and that Amendment 9 has, unfortunately, nothing to do with the protection of same-sex civil rights. In any case, says Kunst, both Cocoa Beach and all Florida are advised to Vote FOR Amendment 9 on Tuesday. Pastor of Breaking the Silence Metropolitan Community Church, the Reverend Linda Beane, addressed the small crowd, delivering a heartening true story describing spontaneous crowd cooperation in a fight against the hatemongers at Matthew Shepard's funeral. Her message, in short, is that many Americans are—at heart—much better than recent hate incidents allow some to think. Stephanie Donald, of the Space Coast Lesbian and Gay Alliance, urged a large scale coming out to friends and coworkers everywhere along the Space Coast. "We mustn't be afraid. This is happening in other places too," she counseled. |
Bob Kunst: "Remember Dr. Barnett Slepian!" 