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An Unconscious Collaborator? |
A British ex-patriot, Mr. Sullivan has been a frequent guest on major network talk shows due to his former standing as an openly gay editor-in-chief of The New Republic, a political journal. Growing numbers of activists today have regularly expressed their exasperation with Sullivan's self-deprecating views on these talk shows, which often show him to be, they say, a well-intentioned but misdirected traitor to the struggle for lesbian and gay civil rights. Sullivan, erroneously viewed by the popular press as a gay strategist, shamelessly supported claims, now being made by virulently anti-gay groups, that the media's disinclination to cover the murder of a 13-year old Arkansas boy, Jesse Dirkhising, by two pedophiles, is evidence of American journalism's political correctness when it comes to addressing male-on-male sex crimes.
Mr. Jennings next noted how anti-gay groups throughout the country have been focused for months on the national media's disinclination to publicize Dirkhising's murder, but that their far-right claims had been ignored until their position “was embraced by one of the country's most provocative gay writers…Andrew Sullivan.” Sullivan, in advance, had proudly promoted his ABC Dirkhising debut on his Web site. He was featured on World News Tonight giving his opinion of the teen's killing: “I think there's clearly evidence that many people in the media decided, 'Well, we're not going to go there because we know it will feed anti-gay prejudice.' ” This unseemly comparison between pedophiles' rape and murder and a horrendous hate crime highlights the confusion of the moral issues involved. By voicing such sentiments Sullivan appears to have undermined any stature he once enjoyed as a legitimate GLBT community representative. According to Aaron Brown of ABC News New York: “The fuel propelling this (Sullivan) argument (asks) why so much (media) coverage for (Matthew) Shepard and so little for (Jesse) Dirkhising?” Ms. Martha Moore, of USA Today was chosen by ABC to reply to this question. She said: “For a crime story or a murder—even a horrific or sad one like Jesse Dirkhising's, I think there has to be an issue of larger social significance attached to it.” The ABC news reporter backed up Ms. Moore's journalistic stance. He said: “In Shepard, the issue was hate crime laws and whether they should extend to gays. In Dirkhising, the media saw a terrible crime, but no greater issue.” While Mr. Brown admitted that such a decision might seem cold, he also explained: “Countless rapes and murders—gay and straight—go unreported all the time exactly for that reason.” Thus, for most of the national media, including the Washington Post, USA Today and World News Tonight, said the ABC report, the decision to avoid the Dirkhising murder was “easy, logical and routine.” Sadly, it was approached differently by Andrew Sullivan, who recently wrote a not-so-surprising Sunday New York Times Magazine article celebrating how he'd found anti-gay fundamentalist religionists—in groups-- to be likable people. Some say the nation's media ought now to re-think Andrew Sullivan and, perhaps, to ignore him. Interested in the Dirkhising murder issue? Peter Jennings invites you to express your views at www.abcnews.com GayToday invites readers to do the same: gaytoday@badpuppy.com |
Andrew Sullivan: Siding with anti-gay bigots 