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Disney disses Pahrump

Pahrump, the 36,000-resident Nye County community that often seems to bewitch show biz types—it was featured in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Mars Attacks and Lady Magdalene’s—has received an apology from Disney.

A Disney XD show, Gamer’s Guide to Pretty Much Everything, called the town “a stinkhole,” referred to a fictional medical malady as “Pahrump lump,” and described children in Pahrump as “filthy.” A clip of the items was posted online by Nye County teen Danyelle Ormiston where it got good ratings.

After the Pahrump Valley Times publicized the disparaging language about the town, Disney vice president of children’s communications Patti McTeague wrote the newspaper, “Regarding your report about viewer response to a recent episode of the comedy series … we reviewed the episode and have removed references to Pahrump and other lines of dialogue for future airings. Any disrespect to the people of Pahrump is unintentional and we sincerely regret if any offense was taken.”

This is known as a non-apology apology, incidentally. McTeague did not say, “We sincerely regret it.” Rather, she wrote, “We sincerely regret if any offense was taken.” Also known as an ifpology (comedian Harry Shearer’s term), it shifts the fault from the offender to the offended. Such apologies are common in politics. In January 1992, after a tape recording of Bill Clinton making demeaning remarks about New York Governor Mario Cuomo being a Mafioso was released by Gennifer Flowers, Clinton said, “If the remarks on the tape left anyone with the impression that I was disrespectful to either Gov. Cuomo or Italian-Americans, then I deeply regret it.”

Geyser changes hands

Fly Geyser, a familiar and colorful—but rarely seen—formation on the Black Rock Desert has been sold to Burning Man Project, along with the ranch that encloses it. The sale was made for $6.5 million.

One unnamed geyser in the area was created a century ago when a well was being drilled for irrigation purposes that never came to pass. In 1964, another test well drilled by a geothermal company created Fly Geyser and also drained the first geyser of its pressure. Fly Geyser was not hot enough for power generation and was sealed back up but the seal did not hold.

Anti-gay violence may not be the only area where leadership is lacking (see News, this page). In commenting on the possible creation of a national monument at Bear Ears in Utah, U.S. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch said, “I would hope that my fellow Utahans would not use violence, but there are some deeply held positions that cannot just be ignored.”

Fantasy betting may be revived

Nevada state gambling regulators recommended approval on June 8 of a proposal for fantasy sports wagers on a platform akin to parimutuel betting. The decision came as the New York Assembly was moving forward on a fantasy sports measure.

Daily fantasy sports was well underway in Nevada until October, when the state said operators needed gambling licenses. The websites halted Nevada wagers. The approval last week came in an application from race and sports book operator Vic Salerno.

The recommendation came from the Gaming Control Board to the Gaming Commission.

Salerno’s Sanderina II LLC issued a prepared statement about its USFantasy platform: “The USFantasy contest platform provides a level of consumer protections unparalleled in daily fantasy sports (DFS). Pari-mutuel systems are the original skilled selection platform for contestants to compete against one another in a fair, regulated and transparent environment. In a pari-mutuel environment, the consumer has a constantly updated, real-time view of the entire contest market. The consumer has immediate access to how much money is in the entire pool as well as how these monies are dispersed among the individual athlete in each contest in the form of current odds. This turn-key DFS solution can easily adapt with existing pari-mutuel regulations in 43 states.” Sociologist Richardson: Where are the leaders?

Silence

Few leaders speak against anti-gay violence

In California in 2000, the anti-marriage equality ballot measure called by Question 22 was approved by 61.4 Dennis Myers percent of voters. Eight years later, the issue was back on the state’s ballot as Question 8, and while it was approved again, it passed by only 52.5 percent. Opposition to marriage equality had dropped almost nine percentage points in eight years.

Admonitions against anti-gay violence are rare

In Nevada, where a similar measure went on the ballot by initiative petition, the figures were less dramatic but went in the same direction. In Nevada, the measure had to pass in two general elections two years apart. In the first round of voting in 2000, the measure passed by 69.62 percent. In second round voting in 2002, it passed by 67.2 percent. In two years opposition to marriage equality lost 2.4 percent of its strength (which, if projected onto eight years, would be a greater drop than in California).

For those who believe that acceptance of gays is a sign of a healthy society, these striking changes in public sentiment were encouraging. But the rate of crime against gays did not follow such a steady line downward. In the first half of the first decade of the century, there was a sharp decline in anti-gay crime, but then it rose slightly and leveled off. Other sources show more fluctuating— and higher—figures recently. By any set of figures, a drop in gay bashing does not appear likely any time soon.

What happened in Orlando last weekend was surprising only in its scale. Violence against gays has been common for decades. Until the 1970s, official anti-gay violence was frequent, little covered by journalists, and drew little sympathy from the public when it became known. Police officers brutalized gays, invaded their gathering places, and jailed them, where they sometimes were further injured. There were statutes making homosexuality illegal.

Once gays began gaining political power and incidents like the police invasion of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village caused public backlash, police violence began to decline, but it continued from other sectors—often exacerbated by attacks on gays from political activists that were rarely leavened with warnings against violence.

When a Moral Majority chapter launched an anti-gay campaign in San Francisco in 1981, its advocates said nothing to discourage violence against gays but did make reference to “the Sodom and Gomorrah of the United States and the armpit of this perverted movement … a capital crime against God and upon society.” It’s a judgment call whether that kind of language encourages violence.

When Oregonian Lon Mabon launched an anti-gay petition in Nevada in 1994, and Las Vegan Richard Ziser started an ultimately successful anti-marriage equality initiative petition in 2000, neither of them urged nonviolence.

Given the decades-long history of violence against gays, do critics of the gay lifestyle have an obligation to couple their attacks on gays with calls for order and nonviolence?

“They certainly do,” said University of Nevada, Reno sociologist James Richardson. “But that doesn’t mean they’re going to follow through with that. I mean, we have abortion doctors being killed, we have gays being killed, and those are often not condemned. Some people have very strong views. Fundamentalists of varied stripes have strong feelings.”

When condemnation does not follow violent incidents, Richardson said, it encourages more of them. He said anti-gay feelings among some people are so strong that it elevates minor issues.

“Who uses what bathroom has somehow become a hill to die on for some,” he said.

Discomfort

But in researching this article, we also found something of a lack of Democrats discouraging anti-gay violence, too. Not until an Orlando happens does it come up. And silence creates a climate of harsh language in which violence can thrive. Must politicians and religious leaders wait until an Orlando to discourage anti-gay violence?

“We have a real dearth of leadership,” Richardson said.

Some gays say they feel the silence of Democrats simply reflects the discomfort some people still feel about gays. It is reflected in other ways, too, they say.

“We have spousal abuse campaigns and bullying campaigns,” said a UNR student. “Where is the stop anti-gay violence campaign?”

Other gays are unsure about that idea, but they say there are other

ways that gays are made to feel they don’t count.

“No one was collecting data on people killed by police until last year—well, data collection on gay-bashing isn’t anything to brag about, either,” one prominent gay Renoite told us.

The Fatal Encounters database showed not just a high percentage of minorities were killed by police, but also a high number of people with histories of mental troubles— both groups that have had a history of being regarded as unimportant or disdained by society.

Last week, the Associated Press reported that thousands of police agencies fail to report hate crimes or hate crime allegations to the FBI. In fact, “more than 2,700 city police and county sheriff’s departments across the country that have not submitted a single hate crime report for the FBI’s annual crime tally during the past six years— about 17 percent of all city and county law enforcement agencies nationwide.”

Mark Potok, an official of the Southern Poverty Law Center, told AP reporter Christina Cassidy, “If these crimes are never really counted, it’s a way of saying they are not important.”

Richardson said that given the dramatic legal progress and changes gays have made, even he has been surprised at the enduring problems with anti-gay sentiment—and that may account for the reticence of Democrats, too.

“I usually think of Democrats and liberals as kind of passive, and it hasn’t occurred to them that someone would visit such violence on gays, particularly after the progress of the last few years. They think we’ve passed the time when someone would strap a gay person to a tree in Wyoming with barbed wire. I’m thinking of my own sentiments and how I feel, and I’m astonished that something that happened in Orlando could still happen.”

He also said, “There is an irony, a tragic irony, that what happened in Orlando is going to cause more sympathy to rebound to the victims and strengthen support for gays.” Ω

Some people don’t count?

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