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Loading ...Did ricin threat come from within gay community?
01.09.2009 11:14am EST
(Seattle, Washington) Security has been beefed up at gay bars in Seattle following this week’s threats that patrons would be targeted in a ricin attack.
The FBI and Homeland Security are participating in the investigation into who made the anonymous threats at 11 gay bars, but are referring all questions to Seattle Police. The police department will say little except that it takes the threats seriously.Police patrols have increased in the Capitol Hill area where the bars are located.
The threats were made in typewritten letters received by the bars on Tuesday. The weekly newspaper The Stranger received a 12th letter saying it should be “prepared to announce the deaths of approximately 55 individuals.”
Despite the threats, business at the bars has shown little sign of slowing down, although many patrons say they are more vigilant. Tonight, an ad hoc group will hold a Capitol Hill Pub Crawl. The group on its Web site is urging gays and their supporters to attend.
The site also reminds people going to bars to look out for each other and “never leave your drink unattended or accept a drink from a stranger.”
Ricin is a poison found naturally in castor beans. It can be in the form of a powder, a mist, or a pellet, or it can be dissolved in water or weak acid.
If made into a partially purified material or refined into a terrorist or warfare agent, ricin could be used to expose people through the air, food or a liquid.
While law enforcement is tight lipped about the investigation, some people within the city’s LGBT community say they suspect the threats came from someone who is gay.
They cite a line in the threatening letters loosely taken from the poem “A Display of Mackerel” by openly gay writer Mark Doty. The poem was published in Doty’s book, Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, which won the 2008 National Book Award for Poetry.
“The targets won’t care much that they’ll be dead and nearly frozen, just as, presumably, they didn’t care that they were living,” the letters said.
Doty told The Seattle Times that he wrote the poem in 1994 as a meditation on the nature of the self and mortality after his partner died of AIDS.
Some, including Dan Savage, the editorial director of The Stranger, say the reference to the poem suggests the letters came from someone who is gay.
“It’s a gay self-hater,” Savage told The Times.
“Somebody who was seriously interested in killing a bunch of people at a gay bar wouldn’t announce the method of the attack in advance.”
So much for the hysterical rants of “the hets have ratcheted up their war against us” postings.
My husband and I have a saying we use to amuse ourselves: “Hey, it’s never too soon to panic.” Or to overreact.
Dan Savage is an Ass.
Let’s see, a gay person would kill 55 other gays in hopes of what? Expanding Business because we’ll all rush out to support our bars? Or perhaps it’s to empty out the bars and crush the businesses?
This is more bullshit thrown against our community by morons. Remember the week after Prop 8 passed? Someone sent Envelopes of Powder to the Moron Churches, whose leaders stood up and pointed their media finger at us. They screamed we were responsible. We did this because we are violent people.
Remember that?
Can i ask you a question: What happened to that investigation? Huh? Let’s see. fbi gets 19 names and pictures on the T.V. three hours after 9/11 - complete with shiny animations and bios.
Two months after Prop 8’s victory and this Mormon Lie, they’ve got what? Nothing?
Oh yes, dear friends. There is a war on. But we didn’t start it and we’re not fighting in it. They have stood up and made us the enemy and they intend to carry out every little violent scenario their white straight christian hearts have ever loathed and longed for.
Demand answers now, not inuendo.
Dan Savage is a celebrity homosexual. He’s made his money off of being gay for pay…which is ironic. I like Dan Savage, though. He’s kinda funny.
As to this, I don’t think it was an ebmittered homosexual. And yes, of course if the threats were serious, they wouldn’t have been made in the first place. Just some joker who will hopefully be caught.
Gay for Pay pseudo-celebrities will say anything to get their name published some where, it seems. I find this petty, especially when they have nothing to say except that they have not managed to come to terms with their internalized homophobia.
The ricin threat is a hate crime. It doesn’t matter if the individual is gay, straight or otherwise. The message they sent was meant to frighten and intimidate gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and the people that love and support them. It makes it harder for our children to come out and for our community members to come together.
As for Gerry Fisher and the non sequitur about panic; it is clear to me that Gerry either lives in a suburban bubble and has never had his/her/its life or the lives of others he/she/it cares about threatened, or Gerry is extremely personality disordered and lacks the ability to demonstrate empathy or appropriate social interactions. In either case, now is the time for heterosexuals to stand up for the safety and well-being of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Where is it that Dan Savage is wrong in this? He has some very strong assumptions and they certainly seem plausible.
When the Aryan Nation had conspired to bomb Neighborhood Disco in Seattle, it was the FBI that uncovered and stopped the plot.
Here in Atlanta, Eric Rudolph exploded one of two bombs at the Otherside Lounge. There was no prior warning.
Those that want to do such damage do not usually send notes that include any notice. (Let alone poetry.)
I really hate to say this but I’m not really surprised that this is happening in Seattle. And, I agree that the perp is most likely someone gay - a gay self-hater. Seattle gay men are a breed unto themselves. Very strange, some quite nasty and certainly capable of pulling off a stunt like this. I’m sooo glad I don’t live in Seattle!