Last week,
Washington Post's Dana Milbank wrote a wrong-headed and
ignorant column objecting to Southern Poverty Law Center's determination Family Research Council fit their criteria as a hate group. Milbank described FRC as a "mainstream conservative think tank."
Milbank's column was met with nearly unanimous objections in the LGBT community including the Washington Blade, Michelangelo Signorile, John Aravosis, Pam Spaulding and many others, including Crooks and Liars, Daily Kos' LaFeminista. Today, the Post was gracious enough to print a great response from Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin who makes an excellent case why it is totally appropriate Family Research Center should be known as a hate group.
Today however, I am seeing red over Washington Post's Deputy Editorial Page Editor Jackson Diehl's nasty, dismissive response on Twitter:
Dear Jackson Diehl,
Screw you.
If you have no interest in hearing what your "idiotic" readers think of the garbage you publish, why don't you just get a private email?
I am among the "idiots" who sent an email, although mine was to Milbank. I received no response, which is fine, I only hoped to educate him and participate in a civil, reality-based dialogue on issues of concern to the LGBT community. It was not a part of a coordinated campaign. Rather, like so many of your other gay, lesbian and transgender readers I had a visceral, immediate revulsion to seeing Dana Milbank play apologist for Family Research Council after they have called me a "pedophile," advocated for subjecting me to "criminal sanctions," and suggested that I should be "exported" from the country.
My letter was actually rather polite because I just presumed that Milbank was merely ignorant about the depths Family Research Council stoops to in their quest to demonize and slander gay people. I didn't imagine Milbank was honestly arguing that it is a "mainstream conservative" belief that the Ugandan "Kill The Gays" bill merely “uphold[s] moral conduct that protects others and in particular the most vulnerable.”
But, by your comments, Mr. Diehl, it appears the ignorance runs much higher up the chain of command at the Washington Post than just the columnists.
We gay people get it. Maybe you straight people don't know how frequently Tony Perkins and Family Research Council tells the world all gay people are sick, vicious, predatory pedophiles. Maybe you think it's okay that they do so. Maybe you even agree with them that all gay people are sick, vicious, predatory pedophiles.
But I promise you, the LGBT community will not stop their "idiotic campaign" to correct the lies and misinformation spread by Family Research Council and their enablers in the media. And that includes you, Editor Diehl and Dana Milbank.
So you better learn to use your email client to filter out more "idiotic email campaigns" attempting to educate you out of your idiotic, heterosexual ignorance.
Good day sir,
The "idiots" in the gay community
• If you're inclined to fill Jackon Diehl's email box with more idiotic objections, his email is
diehlj@washpost.com or send him a Tweet at
@JacksonDiehl
Update: Dana Milbank will be speaking to Michelangelo Signorile on his radio show this afternoon.