The Lavender Menace

Stonewall was a moment charnière in the gay liberation movement as Montreal Simon and Slap Upside The Head wrote last month.

For lesbians, a different type of watershed moment took place for the US women's liberation movement when Betty Friedan was quoted about

... the threat that she believed associations with lesbianism posed to NOW and the emerging women's movement. Friedan, and some other straight feminists as well, worried that the association would hamstring feminists' ability to achieve serious political change, and that stereotypes of "mannish" and "man-hating" lesbians would provide an easy way to dismiss the movement. Under her direction, NOW attempted to distance itself from lesbian causes – up to omitting the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis from the list of sponsors of the First Congress to Unite Women in November 1969.

Friedan's remarks and the decision to drop DOB from the sponsor list led lesbian feminist Rita Mae Brown to angrily resign her administrative job at NOW in February 1970. On March 15 1970, straight radical feminist Susan Brownmiller quoted Friedan's remarks about the "lavender menace" and dismissed her worries as "A lavender herring, perhaps, but no clear and present danger" in a New York Times Magazine article.

While those events are long past, there are christian fundamentalist haters who still fan the flames of gynophobia with regard to lesbians. For example, this blogger with impeccable hater connections to a number of religious rightwing political astro-turfing organizations, is an unabashed cheer-leader for the testerical actions of Marshall G. Abbott, aka "Deputy Sheriff Pepper".

Deputy Sheriff Pepper Sprays "Threatening" Lesbians.

A San Diego deputy sheriff's actions are under investigation after he allegedly assaulted and injured two Encinitas resident and pepper-sprayed guests at a backyard fundraiser.

The investigation into the disruption of a Francine Busby political fundraiser, which resulted in the arrests of two of her supporters at a house in Encinitas, has been turned over to the District Attorney's Office. ... Those who attended said a heckler shouted obscenities and derogatory comments from behind bushes during a brief talk by Busby. No one seems to know who the heckler was or whether it was the same person who made the noise complaint. ...

About 9:30 p.m., sheriff's deputy Marshall G. Abbott arrived in response to the noise complaint. Abbott walked into the house and asked Barman, the host, for her date of birth for his report, according to statements by witnesses and Sheriff's Department officials.

In a statement, Barman said she questioned Abbott about why he needed her date of birth, and Abbott twisted her arm behind her back and dropped her to the ground. Barman said her partner, Jane Stratton, 55, also was knocked down by Abbott when she told him to be careful because Barman had recently undergone shoulder surgery.

Abbott used pepper spray because he felt threatened when guests at the party surrounded him and tried to free Barman, a Sheriff's Department spokesman said. Barman, Busby and others at the party described Abbott as being “out of control” and said that he indiscriminately used pepper spray on people trying to talk to him.

The event ended in chaos. ... A sergeant, six deputies including a canine unit, a helicopter and a firetruck responded to Abbott's call for backup.

Perhaps Abbott was feeling a little anxious because he believes everything Pat Robertson says about lesbians?

More information here. Should we thank gawd that Abbott was not armed with a Taser?

Raped for being a lesbian ...

And killed, as in the case of Eudy Simelane.

As well as being one of South Africa's best-known female footballers, Simelane was a voracious equality rights campaigner and one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian in Kwa Thema.

Her brutal murder took place last April, and since then a tide of violence against lesbian women in South Africa has continued to rise. Human rights campaigners say it is characterised by what they call "corrective rape" committed by men behind the guise of trying to "cure" lesbian women of their sexual orientation.

Now, a report by the international NGO ActionAid, backed by the South African Human Rights Commission, condemns the culture of impunity around these crimes, which it says are going unrecognised by the state and unpunished by the legal system.

The mindset and beliefs that support these forms of targeted violence are found anywhere where hatred against women exists in the mind of misogynist men. This happened a few months ago, near San Francisco, a North American city where it would seemingly be safe to be honest about one's sexual orientation.

The 28-year-old victim was attacked on December 13 in Richmond after she got out of her car, which bore a rainbow gay pride sticker. Police said the attackers made comments indicating they knew the woman, who lives openly with her female partner, was a lesbian.

The attack began when one of the men approached the woman, struck her with a blunt object and ordered her to strip. He then sexually assaulted her with the help of the others, according to detectives. When the group saw another person approaching, they forced the victim back into her car and took her to a burned-out apartment building.

She was raped again inside and outside the vehicle and left naked outside the building while her attackers took her wallet and drove off in her car, police said.

Heterosexuality is no protection against sexual assault however. If a group of men terrorize, sexually torture and assault a woman to teach her a lesson, those religious and cultural values that fuel their rage and hatred must be addressed and put on trial, just as its enforcers should be.

As it is with pedophile priests, the common element in these crimes is the institutional validation of the power to control and harm women and children.

Shrieeekkk! Breeding lesbians are to blame!

From this moment on, I must stop imagining who else the scathingly idiotic "Religious (don't call us that) Right" are going to blame. A thought crossed my mind the other day, wondering how the fetus fetishists were going to spin their way out of the support they initially provided to Octuplets' Mom Nadya Suleman.

Bruce of Canuck Attitude kindly provided the answer:

As you all know from our secret meetings where we plan out our world domination, the gays are responsible for all the world's ills– or at least that's what Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council believes. Our latest victory, according to the virulently homophobic jerk is to force America's women to turn out litters of children. Nadya Suleman's eight children are not the result of a sloppy fertility treatment, but rather, the result of procreating lesbians.

Shrieeekkk! The Family Research Council's Tony Perkins is quite the little drama queen.