The Editor's Desk

I hate this case in so many ways — I hate the leader of the defendants probably more than is necessary, and unfortunately, I hate the verdict:

“The brokenhearted father of a Marine killed in Iraq won a long-shot legal fight today after a federal jury in Baltimore awarded him nearly $11 million in a verdict against members of a Kansas church who hoisted anti-gay placards at his son’s Westminster funeral.” — The Baltimore Sun (read the whole story here)

The Westboro Baptist Church family is a crew of loathsome people with a seeming collective persecution complex and apparently thrive on the fact that they repulse so many people. In fact, I have no doubt that they moved on from picketing gay events and AIDS victim funerals to military funerals exactly because of the negative attention it would give them. They probably believe deep in their hearts that the abuse they receive by so many people for what they do brings them closer to what Jesus went through.

I personally encountered these picketers about eight years ago while covering a story and made the decision to mention them, but not interview any of them, for the very reason that all they wanted was publicity and to feed off being loathed. I wanted to deny them of what they most craved.

But this verdict is wrong. There’s no way to get around it. The First Amendment should not have an exception: “unless it causes emotional distress.”

The can of worms this opens is absolutely unbelievable. Somebody could claim emotional distress over just about any comment. How do you argue that somebody hasn’t been caused emotional distress?

No doubt the horror of having this family show up to picket your dead son’s funeral is indeed a source of emotional distress, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but it’s not the role of the government to protect us from cruelty, only threats to our safety and livelihood.

I suspect the judgment will be tossed on appeal, as it should be. I hate that I have to say that. As much as I would love to be rid of Phelps and his ilk, the potential consequences of letting this decision stand are far worse.

Today, Oct. 11, is National Coming Out Day, a day ostensibly for folks to come out and declare that they’re gay, if they’re so inclined.

I’ve always found the day to be a little odd. If you’re involved enough in the community to know of this day’s existence, chances are you’re already out.

On the other hand, because I’m in the media, I’ve had to come out of the closet several times in my career in order to give context whenever I find myself writing opinion pieces on gay issues.

I find it strange every time I feel that I have to do it — journalists are taught to keep so much of ourselves to ourselves. But I’m a strong believer in honesty about any possible bias — I want people to know that on the rare occasion where I’m writing about gay issues, I’m coming from about as far an objective position as you can imagine.

I’ve written twice about gay issues on the opinion page where I’ve brought myself into the discussion as a gay man, and each time I’ve gotten a couple of e-mails in support and opposition. There are some who have written in about the difficulties of being or growing up gay in Barstow. I’ve only been in Barstow for about five years, but I have to say that I haven’t really had many issues with people. There are a couple of people who are very outspoken about my sexual orientation, but they’re really in the minority. I suspect the vast majority of Barstow folks don’t care one way or another.

That’s been my experience in a lot of communities. I have gay friends in large cities who think it’s quite impressive or courageous to be openly gay in a small town. I don’t quite get it. I think I’m more likely to be a victim of a gay bashing in Los Angeles than here.

As I’ve had this experience of being gay in a small town, I eventually came to realize what the fear is: It’s not so much the fear of harm or rejection as it is the lack of embrace or community. It’s the lack of a notable gay subculture in your town. You have to be comfortable in your own skin to be gay in a small town. You have to be able to live without those regular affirmations of the big city. You have to be able to accept the cultural disagreement with others and get on with your life. You can’t hide among “your own.”

Fortunately, I’m used to having a thick skin as a newspaper editor and opinion writer. That I don’t have a parade or a festival here is not really a concern of mine. I drove down to Redlands to see “Brokeback Mountain” and bought in on DVD at the Barstow Wal-Mart. I didn’t see it as some huge injustice that it didn’t play here (though given the part-empty rack at Wal-Mart, I think the local theater might have made a bad decision for economic reasons, not social ones — the theater where I saw the movie was sold out, and the audience consisted mostly of heterosexual couples).

I enjoy my life in Barstow, despite the lack of a traditional “gay community.” I visit friends on occasion in Los Angeles and we have dinner in West Hollywood and it’s fun, but when I leave, I don’t feel as though I’m missing something valuable to me in my return to Barstow.

So, happy coming out day, I guess. If you’re taking this day to inform others that you’re gay, remember that it’s your inner strength that matters, not the responses you get from others.

A Web site out there is reporting that Cuban leader Fidel Castro is dead. The site in question? One produced by Perez Hilton, a well-known (and frequently reviled, though very popular) Hollywood gossip. He’s not exactly known for his international reporting. Us mainstream media folks will have kittens if he’s right, though it’ll be hysterical if he’s not.

Needless to say, there’s nothing on our newswires about it, and we have no idea if this unusual gossip is true.

I went down to Palm Springs for Independence Day to visit some friends.

I explained to a friend as we were driving around in the early evening hours there that it was 111 degrees in Barstow when I got out of there.

“Oh,” he responded. “It got up to 118 degrees here today.”

Oh, indeed. When I left to return home the next afternoon, I burned one of my fingers on the reflector sunblock on my windshield when I was removing it. And so another fun summer begins. Though I’ve been here long enough to be prepared. My first summer in Barstow, I left a tape cassette on the passenger’s seat of my car and it melted.

In an editorial at the OC Register today, their crew hit on an issue related to the “Bong hits for Jesus” banner case that I didn’t even realize when I wrote about it in the blog. It wasn’t even a school event where the student unfurled his banner. The principal allowed students to leave the school to watch the Olympic torch relay pass through town.

With this information, I’d have to say that the decision is a far more serious blow against the First Amendment rights of students then I first thought. It makes it permissible for school administrators to monitor speech in places where they don’t have the real jurisdiction to do so. Expect to see more instances of schools taking action against students’ use of speech in public areas that aren’t necessarily connected to the school, such as Web sites.

People interested in journalism as a field and culture might be interested to read this piece from MSNBC about journalists and political contributions.

My personal attitude is that as a field, we are being silly and pretentious when we try to pretend that we aren’t engaged as citizens in our community, using ethics as a justification.

The larger problem, one which journalism ethics doesn’t seem able to deal with, is that the prohibition against journalists giving contributions to campaigns does not even remotely reduce the appearance of bias. Bias comes from thoughts, not actions. The incorrect assumption here is: “If journalists don’t contribute or participate in political campaigns, then there is no evidence of bias, and people will trust them.” But what actually happens is that people will draw their own conclusions (and sometimes inaccurate ones) about the level of a journalist’s objectivity anyway. Does knowing that a larger percentage of journalists have given to the left than the right (in this particular investigation) change what you already believed to be true about journalists? Probably not.

The public would probably be better served if individual journalists participated in our society as they chose to and then simply be honest about it, instead of this foolish idea of trying to build integrity by hiding who we are. Evidence continues to show that it doesn’t work.

This is mostly how our ethics policy works. We don’t have a policy prohibiting involvement — we have a policy of avoiding conflict of interest. This means our reporters and editors are allowed to get involved with organizations and can donate their private money to whomever they choose. However, this also means that they cannot report news related to the areas they’ve gotten involved with.

For example, I’m a member of our local Rotary club. In the event that Rotary gets into some sort of trouble for whatever reason (not that we would), I would have to “recuse” myself from involvement with the story here at the Desert Dispatch, much like a judge would in a trial in which he has a stake in the outcome.

As a newspaper, though, we don’t get involved or donate money to campaigns. We don’t even endorse candidates. So we acknowledge the separation of the independence of our newspaper as an institution, and the independence of the people who make up the newspaper. I think that’s an important distinction.

Courtesy of Brave New Foundation:

We maintain a discriminatory policy in the military for the (alleged) benefit of a minority of people who just simply can’t deal with certain realities. As a result, we are throwing away resources that would help protect lives and reach our goals.

It makes me wonder if the administration even wants to succeed in Iraq.