Right-wing
rhetoric may have inspired one man to violence in Tennessee.
Thanks, Ann Coulter!
Jim David
Adkisson and I may share two names, but I’m fairly
certain he’s not a gay Sondheim fanatic
distressed about the state of the American musical.
That other Jim David is a 58-year-old man who entered the
Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville
on July 27 and opened fire on a group of parishioners
watching a performance of the children’s
musical Annie Jr. He killed two people and
wounded six others. I confess to wanting to open fire during
a road company production of Mamma Mia! But I
didn’t do it.
Adkisson attacked
the church, according to Knoxville police, “because
of its liberal teachings and his belief that all
liberals should be killed because they were ruining
the country.” He was motivated by his hatred of
“liberals in general as well as gays.”
If there were
Taliban meetings in Knoxville, perhaps Adkisson would have
sat in a circle and shared his frustrations with like-minded
wackos. Instead, he found like-minded wackos at the
bookstore. In his home police found copies of
Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder by Michael
Savage, Let Freedom Ring by Sean Hannity, and
The O’Reilly Factor by Bill
O’Reilly. Thank God they didn’t find gay porn.
America is filled
with nuts who commit insane acts for whatever reason.
But Adkisson -- who, I’m guessing, doesn’t
personally know many liberals or gays -- could not
have acted in a vacuum. An unemployed hick with too
much free time, he read right-wingers who regularly rage
against liberals for a living. These goons
don’t inform or enlighten; they just make you
tear your hair out. I’ve listened to them and read
their books, and they make me want to kill liberals
and gays -- until I remember that I am liberal and
gay.
They use violent
rhetoric against liberals, earn millions, and call it
"entertainment." In one of her speeches at a conservative
conference, Ann Coulter said, "We need to execute people
like [American Taliban] John Walker [Lindh] in order
to physically intimidate liberals, by making them
realize that they can be killed too." She also "joked"
that the best way to talk to liberals would be with
baseball bats. Michael Savage told a caller to his former
MSNBC television show, "Get AIDS and die, you pig."
Commentator Dick Morris, on a break from sucking
prostitutes' toes, wrote a book that labeled liberals
as "traitors" who should be decapitated. When the
public cries foul, they backtrack with "Just kidding."
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