Subject: Militia op-ed by NGLTF
From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 9 May 1995 12:48:51 -0400

EXPLORING THE CONNECTIONS:  MILITIAS AND ANTI-GAY RHETORIC
[The following opinion/editorial is by Scot Nakagawa, field organizer with
the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.  Based in Washington, DC, NGLTF is a
leading national membership organization that has supported grassroots
organizing since 1973.  Permission is granted to reprint with attribution.
 If your publication runs commentaries with photos and you would like a photo
of Scot Nakagawa, contact Beth Barrett at (202) 332-6483, ext. 3215.]

 The intense media attention focused on the April 19 federal building bombing
in Oklahoma City has triggered a public debate on citizen militias and on the
consequences of growing Right Wing resentment toward government.  In the wake
of the tragedy, a terrified public appears to be struggling to understand the
threat posed by these militant groups.  

 However, trying to understand the militias and the danger they pose by
studying the bombing and the militias' self-professed hatred of government is
like trying to understand the entire gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender
community on the basis of one night at a gay bar.    The citizen militia
movement is a complex phenomenon reflective of fast-growing reactionary
sentiment with consequences for all of us.

 The citizen militia movement is actually one faction within a broader Right
Wing backlash against democratic values.  The militias are situated to the
right of more mainstream rightists such as Pat Buchanan, and are closely tied
to white supremacist movements like the Posse Comitatus, the Ku Klux Klan,
Christian Patriots, and Christian Identity.  When militiamen talk about their
"anti-government" agenda, we should hear  -- "anti-gay, anti-Semitic,
anti-woman, anti-democratic, and anti-racial justice" agenda.  

 The militias' proposed alternative to "big bad government" is a return to a
society ruled by an unamended Constitution -- constructed to protect the
rights of white property owners, and intended to exclude women and people of
color from participation in the franchise.  

 Former Center for Democratic Renewal Research Director Leonard Zeskind
writes , "It has the smell of yesteryear -- states' rights and armed
vigilante gangs -- but the militias are now the most popular vehicle to the
right of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition.  Like the Posse Comitatus 15
years ago, the body work is painted with religion, patriotism and the U.S.
Constitution, but the motor is anti-Semitism and racism, and the drivers are
white supremacists." ["The Dignity Report," newsletter of the Coalition for
Human Dignity]

 The militia movement is powered by a growing fear of white male
disprivilege.  In an economy in which temporary employment agencies have
become our largest private employers, and American workers' standard of
living has dropped to pre-1953 levels (Jobs with Justice), rightists such as
the militiamen are growing increasingly nostalgic for a time when white male
entitlements went largely unchallenged.  

 In this respect, the militiamen are part of a growing popular phenomena.
 Perhaps this is the most important aspect of the militia movement that is
being overlooked by the media.  In spite of the more bizarre aspects of the
racial and religious agendas of some of their white supremacist members,
militiamen share many things in common with more mainstream elements of the
Right Wing.  

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Militia Op-Ed

 The militiamen contend that government is failing their members -- white men
-- because of the influence of the civil rights lobby ("racial preferences"
and "special rights"), Jews ("international bankers"), feminists ("breakdown
of the family and gender roles"), and gays (you know what they say about us).
 Some of this language and these ideas are mirrored in the rhetoric of
mainstream Right Wing groups, such as the Christian Coalition, and some of
the new Republican members of Congress, like Rep. Helen Chenoweth of Idaho.
 The militiamen, like mainstream rightists, believe that education is in
ruins because of political correctness and secular humanism; they oppose
government programs for the poor; denounce gay/lesbian/bisexual people; and
often scapegoat minorities as immoral and unproductive.  They say we are all
destroying God, family, and country and use this to justify super
authoritarian measures to control or eliminate us.

 Samuel Sherwood of the United States Militia Association, based in
Blackfoot, Idaho, says of President Bill Clinton, "[he] is determined to
seize your guns, steal your food, take your children away.  In his term, he
will have killed more babies than Hitler, put more homosexuals in government
than Sodom and Gommorah, had the schools teach your children it is right and
forced you to accept it."

 In Michigan, the head of the effort to place an anti-gay initiative on last
year's state ballot used the rhetoric of the militia movement as he advanced
the anti-gay measure.  In an interview two years ago with Metro Times, a
Michigan weekly newspaper, George Matousek described the importance of his
anti-gay initiative in battling the threat of the New World Order.  

 "Where sodomy is acceptable, the nation declines.  Homosexuals are a tool to
weaken America.  I love this country and I want it to remain strong...The
homosexual movement will destroy the military.  Soon half of the troops will
be gone.  They don't want to serve beside queers.  And the half that's left
will be useless -- made up of women and homos, people who can't fight their
way out of a paper bag.  When this happens, we'll be doomed.  We'll be
attacked, or called into a war that our military can't handle.  Clinton, or
whoever's in office, will turn all our troops over to the United Nations.
 And this country won't exist anymore."

 Matousek's plan?  "Step one, stop the homos."

 Only the U.S. Constitution and armed citizens will prevent such a takeover,
according to Matousek.  Which is why he advocates all citizens owning guns.

 Matousek expressed frustration at the stagnating economy and how that
inspired his actions.  "When I grew up...I could get a job with any factory I
wanted.  I could earn money.  Now, with the international bankers in control,
there's so much socialist thinking.  Work, work, work--but never really own
anything, because of taxes."  The solution is "armed revolution...I believe
that we're headed for this someday."

 This is what the militias are, and what they represent.  As we mourn
together over the tragedy in Oklahoma City, we must not allow our grief to
blind us to the continuing threat of the militias and the Right Wing movement
to which they belong.  

 We need to get down to business and educate ourselves about the wide array
of Right Wing groups that threaten our rights and security, and understand
the social and economic factors that lead to their development.  We must
further understand that our fates as gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender
people are inextricably tied to other groups under Right Wing attack.  It's
time to reach out, broaden our agenda, and increase our capacities for
compassion and human connection.  We must overcome fear, come out, and
organize, organize, organize.
--end--