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From: arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold%CGL)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: motssbox
Message-ID: <546@ucsfcgl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Jun-85 18:35:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucsfcgl.546
Posted: Wed Jun 19 18:35:29 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Jun-85 02:44:02 EDT
References: <482@rtech.UUCP> <1461@bbncca.ARPA>
Reply-To: arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE)
Organization: UCSF Computer Graphics Lab
Lines: 74

In article <1461@bbncca.ARPA> rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) writes:
>Robert Orenstein's bigoted assertions speak for themselves.  His speculation
>that White did not kill Milk because he way gay runs counter to the entire
>political environment of that time: for example, the behavior and senti-
>ments of the SF police, fire dept. and other peers and close friends of
>White before, during and after the murders paint quite a different picture
>other than mere political infighting.  These are covered in Randy Shilts
>THE MAYOR OF CASTRO STREET and can also be traced via articles in the
>San Francisco press.
>
>But the main point here is that the mere existence of stress or inter-
>personal hostility hardly serves to fully explain an act as extreme as
>brutal multiple murder: I doubt many San Franciscans could be persuaded
>to believe that White would have killed anyone if there had been no gay
>Board members.

Being a SF Bay Area resident at the time, and being very politically
aware, I think Ron is leaping way overboard here.  It is true that the
behavior of the SF police was (and mostly still is, with only small
improvement) homophobic, but I am one San Franciscan who is convinced
that the murder of Moscone would have happened, and probably the murder
of Milk, no matter who was or was not gay.

First, the "mere existence of stress or interpersonal hostility" is a
quite complete motive in itself.  People shoot each other over parking
spaces, for God's sake.  People who don't like each other shoot each
other without introduction of extra-normal stress.  This is clearly an
incorrect statement on Ron's part.  Stress + hostility gets several
people killed every year in this country, in so-called "crimes of
passion" and otherwise.

As has been described in this newsgroup in great detail, White was
trying to regain his Supervisor's seat which he had just resigned, and
considered (it seems correctly) Moscone and Milk as the main people
standing in his way.  So he did what every macho, ego centered,
violence trained and inured person is supposed to do: he blew his
opponents away.  That Milk was gay may have entered into the equation,
but it was hardly his driving force.  (As was also mentioned before,
Milk and White had at one point been friends, which would not have been
possible had White been a knee-jerk massively violent homophobe.)  Try
stress, injury to pride, public humiliation, anger at having his will
thwarted, basic over-macho, and family and financial problems (but
whatever you do, don't try junk food; that's a well-paid lawyer's
crock).  If this doesn't seem like enough, see the mention of killing
over parking spaces above.

Now, it has admittedly struck Randy Shilts that Milk was murdered as
primarily (though not exclusively) a homophobic act.  But to interpret
otherwise is surely not an act of bigotry, as Ron asserts.  Many people
in San Francisco approved of the killing of Milk because THEY were
homophobic, but White's homophobia was not so compelling to drive him
out of his skull and into Milk's office that day to shoot him.

Two other points about this:

(1)	I, for one, would suspect that the reason White got off without
	even what I would count as a wrist slap for two murders, both
	of which were also violations of Civil Rights, is primarily
	because he looked like Every Mother's Son, and besides, "he'd
	only killed some bleeding-heart liberal and his fag friend."
	They jurors would never put it quite like this, but some of
	their comments sure sounded like this kind of shit.

(2)	Recent local press reports state that White's neighbors have
	seen him puttering around his garden in SF regularly.  This guy
	must have a real death wish.  The Mayor, the Chief of Police,
	the SF Sheriff, and both major local papers have recommended
	that he stay away, but I guess he can't stand the idea that
	some people will hold him responsible for killing somebody, and
	might take it personally enough to at least beat the shit out
	of him, if not kill him.  I don't condone this kind of thing,
	but it's almost bound to happen.

			Ken Arnold