Yesterday, the weekly independent Seattle paper, The Stranger, as well as eleven Seattle gay bars, received letters threatening patrons with ricin poisining. The letter to The Stranger was sent to the obit section, telling them to be prepared to write the obits for 55 people poisoned in the gay bars.
The Seattle police are in custody of the letters. It is unclear whether the FBI is involved.
This story was reported by Dan Savagein the Stranger, and in The Seattle Times.
Here is the letter:
From The Stranger article:
"I felt sick when I read it," said Carla, the owner/manager of Re-bar. "It's so vile. It's just hatred. It made me worry for all the other bars, and for my bartenders, and our clientele."
Savage speculates that the attack was meant to harm business in the gay bar, and it's true that the logistics of this type of attack would be hard to carry out to say the least. Many Seattle LGBTQs responded to the threat by making a point to patronize these businesses. Of course, common sense cautions were in order -- don't take drinks from strangers, guard your drinks, don't snort unknown substances and so on.
Odds are high that this threat is just some kook looking for attention and hoping to scare (terrorize) gays and gay businesses. But what I can't help thinking is that when we live in a world where hatred of gay people is accepted as a tenet of religious freedom, then we live in a world where we are tacitly saying that glbtq folks are worthy of revulsion, and should be eliminated. Few people, event the most fundamentally religious would say so in as many words, but what other outcome do you expect when you compare gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered people to the most reviled segments of our society? When you portray them as unnatural and perverse?
Hatred trickles down. I pray to my glbtq-loving God that this threat is taken seriously as a terrorist threat and that this sicko is apprehended, no matter whether it was a hoax or not. I don't really share Savage's glib attitude about this just being a nutjob, not to be taken seriously. I want him to be captured and prosecuted to the full extent of the law before his obvious sickness and hate can cause any real harm.