by Leslie Robinson
General Gayety
Silly me. Here I had the idea that I'd heard every wild claim people could make about gays. I've got to stop selling people short.
On June 21 the Fox News Channel show, "The O'Reilly Factor," offered a segment called "Violent Lesbian Gangs a Growing Problem." Host Bill O'Reilly began the segment by painting a lurid picture of lesbian gangs in American cities busily attacking men and raping girls.
I am positive those instructions were not in my lesbian handbook.
O'Reilly then interviewed "Fox News Crime Analyst" Rod Wheeler live. Wheeler announced the existence of a "national underground network" of lesbian gangs that recruit children and commit crimes.
Wheeler claimed that "we've actually counted, just in the Washington, D.C. area alone, that's Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, well over 150 of these crews."
That many lesbians in one area? It's the urban version of the Dinah Shore!
Wheeler said that recruited young girls have been forced to perform sexual acts. He stated these gangs stretch from New York to California. He also mentioned that some of these Sapphic bands carry pink 9-millimeter Glocks. "They call themselves the pink-pistol-packing group."
When I read that bit, I suspected Wheeler wasn't just a spotlight-addicted blowhard, but mixed up. The Pink Pistols is a national organization for lesbian and gay gun enthusiasts. Now that group seeks an on-air apology, because "people are confusing these imaginary, lesbian, gun-carrying gangs with our organization," said its spokesperson.
After this program ran, Bill O'Reilly's roughly 3 million viewers were left with the idea that bands of roving dykes, brandishing pink-painted weaponry, are on a nationwide, vicious, distinctly unladylike rampage.
In a terrific article called "The Oh-Really Factor," the Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report dug into these sensational claims. Concerning that astounding number of 150 lesbian gangs in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, Detective Patrick Word, president of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Gang Investigators Network, said, "Our membership reports only one lesbian gang."
Sgt. Brett Parson is the former commander of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department's Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit. "We have 150 to 175 total gangs in the D.C. area, and out of those only nine where the predominance of members are female," he said. "You simply can't make the jump that they are lesbians. I think it is fair to talk about violence and female gangs. But to sensationalize or marginalize a community by making a statement like that seems irresponsible."
It's not just irresponsible. It's nuttier than a cashew tree.
The amazing thing is that Bill O'Reilly himself is so clueless about gay people that this idea seemed credible to him. Of course, that's assuming he cares about journalistic niceties like accuracy. This may simply have been a publicity grab. Silly me, again.
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation is plenty perturbed by the "inaccurate tabloid journalism." GLAAD wants O'Reilly and Wheeler to offer on-air corrections and a formal apology to the lesbian community.
Pressed by the Intelligence Report, Wheeler didn't provide a single source for his amazing D.C.-area figure. But he said he was correct. "This is a serious crisis and the so-called experts are missing it."
Somebody's missing something, all right.
At the segment's start, O'Reilly referred to a lesbian gang called Gays Taking Over raping girls in Tennessee, and a wild bunch called Dykes Taking Over terrorizing Philadelphians. The Intelligence Report argued the Tennessee example came from a "highly dubious" local TV report, and the Philly example was exaggerated to the point of stretch marks.
But O'Reilly still had a New York man attacked by seven lesbians. Except the women weren't gang members. And O'Reilly omitted that the guy swore, spat and flicked a cigarette at the women after one of them declined his sexual offer.
That's just the kind of journalist O'Reilly is. Can't let truth get in the way when you have a toothsome gays-as-predators opportunity!
