Yesterday, we found out what happened. Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs linked to a posting at Outlet Radio. According to Christian Grantham, GayPatriot was threatened with a boycott of the corporation where he was employed due to a post on his blog:
Anyone who kept up with the recent Jeff Gannon scandal should recognize Aravosis, as he was the one who went muckraking to find out about Gannon's homosexual past. I'm not as familiar with Rogers, though.On Friday, GayPatriot posted "WANTED: GAY TERRORISTS" in which he identified gay activists and bloggers John Aravosis (Americablog) and Michael Rogers (BlogActive) as terrorists.
Wanted for crimes against the gay community. Wanted for repeatedly conducting outing witch hunts against gays who do not believe in radical liberal anti-American ideals. For repeated violations of privacy of gay Americans. For conducting systematic civil liberties attacks on gay Americans.WANTED! Let's do something about these gay terrorists who have infected our community with their hatred and self-loathing bigotry of gay Americans who wish to live their lives in peace.
[WANTED: GAY TERRORISTS - GayPatriot - 03-25-05]
As you can tell, Patriot wasn't accusing Rogers or Aravosis of being terrorists in the literal sense. It can be argued that it was a poor choice of words. But that's no excuse for how Rogers reacted:
This sort of behavior is inexcusable. People have lives, and Rogers tried to ruin GayPatriot's life because of a post he didn't like. Rogers's weak excuse for manner in this manner is a load of bs, and he knows it.According to GayPatriot, who is also a client of mine, Michael Rogers called GayPatriot's place of employment on Friday immediately following the post above and spoke to GayPatriot's secretary and boss. GayPatriot had no idea Rogers would go to such measures and shared with me that both he and his secretary were very upset by the calls but that his boss was understanding.
Later on that day, Rogers personally called me and recounted much of the same account, adding that he had also called the police and is working with the authorities on the matter. Rogers expressed feeling threatened by the post and compared it to posts by anti-abortionists who posted the names of doctors performing them.
Rogers also said he asked GayPatriot to remove the post and replace it with a post about non-violence or he would launch a national boycott of GayPatriot's corporate employer and pursue any and all avenues necessary to protect himself. By the time Rogers had called, GayPatriot had already made the decision to remove the post and also remove GayPatriot from the blogosphere.
GayPatriot was silenced.
That's the main reason why I've yet to decide in revealing my name, because I don't want some nutjob on the internet to dig into my personal life and try to ruin it because he didn't like what I wrote. And this isn't the first time it's happened; Hindrocket at Powerline experienced the wrath of the moonbats as well, as they called his law office and harrassed him and his secretary from his defense of Jeff Gannon over a month ago.
This also exposes the intolerance of the ones that are preaching tolerance, especially within their own "group". Rogers and Aravosis's witchhunts prove they are more than willing to do whatever it takes to eliminate their opposition. They're no better than the McCarthyists from the 50s or several other figures I'm sure they'd claim to despise.
I guess it's too much to ask for people to leave their emotions in their writings and keep it from stemming into each others' personal lives. Some people don't know how to respond to criticism other than through making people as miserable as they are.
I hope this incident doesn't scare bloggers to cave in to threats like these. Freedom of speech is all the blogosphere has, and it's what gives the blogosphere special. Freedom of speech is what gives people the courage to stand up and speak against the injustices of the world. When something goes down, the blogosphere is the first one to talk about it. When something smells fishy, the blogosphere is the first one investigate it.
In a world where double speak and spin are at it's highest peak, political blogs are an important part of the political spectrum. If bloggers start giving in to scare tactics and intimidation, we're no better than the media and the politicians that we criticize.