Avoiding the Crucial Issue

I am writing with regard to Michele Willens’ article “What’s the Limit?: The Buzz on Talk-Show Row” (Calendar, March 17). The recent murder of a gay talk-show guest who had admitted having a crush on a straight man has rightfully generated a lot of discussion. Unfortunately, the discussion has for the most part avoided the crux of the matter. In a stunning show of cultural invisibility for gays, the issue has become “Did talk shows finally go too far?” Almost everyone agrees they have. That issue, however, is secondary to the more immediate and serious one: the rise in hate crimes being committed against homosexuals.

As further demonstration that the gay minority is the only group that is still OK to hate, the mainstream press has failed to focus on the homophobia that is at the core of this incident. Commentators moan about the moral disintegration of America. Everyone is quick to gape at the sick underbelly of society this incident has exposed. But nobody has named the sickness “hatred.” No one has denounced intolerance. Incredibly, the straight man in this drama has been portrayed as a victim because he was lied to by the producers of “The Jenny Jones Show.” The dead man, the gay man, has been virtually ignored.

I suspect that if a racist guest had shot a black man or a battered wife her husband, the issues of race and domestic violence would be primary. Conversely, in the unlikely event that a gay man shot a woman who had confessed she had a crush on him, the issue of his orientation as causal in the crime would surface immediately. Why then, is the problem of hate crimes against gays and lesbians not being discussed?

This type of silence is a chilling reminder that violence against homosexuals does not fully register in the collective psyche of straight America as the serious problem that it is. On those occasions when it does surface, it is too often buffeted by the suspicion that the gay person “asked for it” and somehow deserved it.

Gay bashings are on the rise across this country. Clearly it is still dangerous to be a gay person and be honest about yourself to others. Punching talk shows in the eye may allow us to feel righteous, but by leveling our condemnation against television rather than against the crime, we remove responsibility from the killer and minimize the pain and outrage of the gay community. The issue should and must be about the murderous violence being perpetrated against gays and lesbians in this country. GABRIEL RIERA

Santa Monica