Political Correctness is Torture

This week’s Washington Times column:

Here we go again. The latest poster conservative for political-correctness-run-amok in a country careening downhill on left-wing, Democratic cruise control is Republican congresswoman Virginia Foxx.

Mrs. Foxx’s impropriety: The thought crime of arguing against “hate crime” laws by pointing out that Matthew Shepard – the tragic icon attached to the legislation – represents a salient argument against enacting them.

Mr. Shepard, the gay Wyoming teenager robbed and savagely beaten to death by drug-addled thugs in 1998, is the emotionally charged posthumous force behind the movement to pass hate crime laws. He got that way after a relentless, decade long mainstream media, Madison Avenue and Hollywood propaganda campaign to make his death a symbol of just-beneath-the-surface sadistic intolerance toward homosexuals.

Three films, a documentary, a play and songs by Melissa Etheridge, Tori Amos and Elton John have made the gay-martyr case a high truth of pop culture. The thematically related “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Brokeback Mountain” reinforced the narrative that gays like Mr. Shepard are regularly isolated for cruel and unusual attacks.

But the congresswoman is not buying the Hollywood hype. “The hate crimes bill was named for [Shepard], but it’s really a hoax that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills,” Mrs. Foxx said on the House floor last week. Immediately, Democrats sought out their unapologetic allies in the media to force Mrs. Foxx into a perfunctory, skin-saving apology.

“The term ‘hoax’ was a poor choice of words used in the discussion of the hate crimes bill,” she said. “Referencing these media accounts may have been a mistake, but if so, it was a mistake based on what I believed were reliable accounts.”

Even though she had the facts to make a strong case, Mrs. Foxx apologized. She realized that the PC media cabal had another sucker conservative in its cross-hairs. Yet apologies are never enough as the Democrat Media Complex trotted out Mr. Shepard’s mother, Judy, to make sure that no one else can raise an objection to the controversial legislation.

Mrs. Foxx has been “apologizing for semantics, but not her sentiment, her insensitivity or her ignorance,” Mrs. Shepard told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “Everyone knew Matthew’s murder was a hate crime, but it couldn’t be prosecuted as a hate crime. We couldn’t call it a hate crime. Getting this bill passed in the House brings gay rights up to the level of equality.”

Judy Shepard like other tragic symbols Cindy Sheehan, the Jersey Widows and Max Cleland are trotted out by Democrats to make their arguments not with facts and reason but with the threat that if you disagree with them, you will be publicly shamed as a “hater.” This pathetic strategy works as Mrs. Foxx’s instant apology illustrates.

You can read the column in full here.