Christopher Stevens hasn't even been brought home for a decent burial, and yet already the wingnut fringe is smearing him. The story goes that Stevens brought his own death on himself because he was openly gay, and thus had no business serving as a diplomat in a Muslim country. Therefore, these wingers say, the State Department is also responsible because sending Stevens to Libya was a flagrant provocation.
The first I saw of this came via a tweet from Bryan Fischer:
The link in that tweet is to an Examiner article posted by South Carolina teabagger Kyle Stevens which suggests Hillary Clinton may have deliberately provoked the Libyan people by knowing sending a gay man there as an ambassador. The only source for this appears to be this article by PUMA-turned Republican Kevin Dujan. All you need to know about Dujan's credibility is that he repeats the old wingnut shibboleth that the public schools are turning our kids into Marxists, and that he also trolls in claims that Obama himself may be a closet radical homosexual.
Apparently the rumor is also gaining traction in "mainstream" wingnut circles. Earlier today, William J. Murray of the Religious Freedom Coalition appeared on Sandy Rios' show and claimed that Stevens was one of many gay diplomats in Middle Eastern countries, and as a result we really don't understand that Islam is at bottom a violent religion. Fischer himself got into the fun earlier today, claiming that Stevens was known to be gay.
I know that the religious right has a warped sense of decency. But for crying out loud, Stevens' body hasn't even been returned home yet and they're already spitting on his grave.
4:02 PM PT: Since this made the rec list, I thought I'd mention something sfbob tracked down in the comments. The doctor who tried to save Stevens told the Daily Telegraph that there was no evidence Stevens was gang-raped, as Fischer and other wingers claim. In truth, he died of smoke inhalation. Also, if this article in WorldNutDaily is to be believed, the sole basis for the rumors about Stevens being gay are that he was unmarried and that Hillary called his sister when she informed next of kin that Stevens was dead.