Gay Panic & the Middle East Conflict

Another crazy week. Tuesday was a panel discussion at the LGBT Center surrounding the execution of two youth in Iran a year ago. Yesterday I went to meeting of folks trying to organize a response to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. Today, a protest in the pouring rain outside the US Mission. It’s all been a blur…one of those weeks when events in the world pull you along, leaving little room for reflection. Then I came across this article in the San Jose Mercury about a group of prosecutors trying to stop the use of the “Gay Panic” defense and an idea crystallized: The claim of fear by the powerful serves to justify violence against the weak.  This claim of fear transforms active violence into reactive “self-defense.” The homophobe uses “gay panic” to justify gay bashing. The Israeli government and its US and British backers use fear of terrorism to justify the invasion of Gaza and the seige of Lebanon. NYPD officers use fear to justify their killing of an unarmed African immigrant in the Bronx.

How do bury the notion that one person’s peace of mind is worth the lives of hundreds or thousands of others? How do we cut through this false logic of fear that enables Empire?