This is what homophobia breeds
July 19, 2005: Florida man convicted of murdering 3-year-old “gay” son: A Florida man stands convicted of second-degree murder after killing his 3-year-old son because he thought the boy might grow up to be gay. A Tampa jury on Thursday found Ronnie Paris Jr. guilty of second-degree manslaughter and aggravated child abuse in the death of his son, Ronnie Antonio Paris. According to The Tampa Tribune, the boy was beaten so badly that he became lethargic, stopped eating, and began wetting himself. On January 22 the boy went into a coma and died six days later. The child’s mother, Nysherra Paris, testified that her husband was trying to “toughen up” their son because he was worried he might grow up to be gay. Ronnie Paris will be sentenced next month, and he faces life in prison. From the Advocate.com
July 25th, 2005 at 7:08 pm
Yeah I caught this story on another podcast late last week. Horrifying stuff. There are some terribly sick people out there.
August 20th, 2005 at 5:24 am
I am very disturbed by this story and I can only think about the torture this child went through.
We owe it to every child in our country to stop this hate from growing. I am a Christian and I believe in Jesus Christ and all I can do right now is cry when I see the absence of what Jesus taught: to love one another.
What is in this man’s heart is an ignorance that has become evil.
If you want to know how extreme it must become in America, before we decide how each of us could ever make a difference, then understand taking NO ACTION is a decision that we cannot maintain anymore. Does this result in ignorance of religion mean killing babies is acceptable?
I truly hope you take a stand of zero tolerance for this type of abuse and torture.
August 22nd, 2005 at 2:12 pm
You have used The Podcast Network to deliver insult to the injury of a mortally wounded family. I wonder how The Podcast Network feels about that?
This is a terrible tragedy brought against an innocent child by an obviously insane man. I don’t think you would claim to be judge, jury, and executioner in any pending trial. You just wrote that way.
HOMOSEXUALITY AND WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE TO DO ABOUT IT ARE BESIDE THE POINT, WHICH IN THIS CASE IS PATERNAL INFANTICIDE IN A FAMILY YOU HAVE NO CONNECTION WITH.
Your written emphasis seems to be how this tragedy functions in the context of homophobia. How do you think this family would regard your use of their tragedy as a building block for your arguments in favor of social value of equal regard for so-called “gay marriages?”
Maybe you just don’t care how they would feel because of what you were able to obtain from this horror.
Would you proudly tell them that his death was rendered useful because it functioned as a cautionary you were able to put to use for your own purposes?
What would you have editorialized if this madman had killed his son because of some madness completely unrelated to his fear of homosexuality? How useful would it have been to you as an illustrative news item then? Not very, I suspect.
The operative is a child’s tragic death, not wagging your editorial finger. Get over yourself.
You used the murder of a child as a cautionary tale in favor of promoting your personal choice. How is that not selfish? I’m afraid there is simply no excuse for you doing this to others in so much pain.
Is this how far all homosexual parents are prepared to go when they see a news item about a little child’s murder attributed to a specific madness, or are you the only one?
Did you for one second consider the family’s feelings, not to mention their right to privacy especially in their unimaginable grief? Just because the media reports something doesn’t mean passing it along is the right thing to do — especially cutting-and-pasting horrible details as you did. You mention prayer somewhere here, so I take it you do understand that relativism must deny absolute good.
Did you even think for one second how this family would feel if they read this? Or if someone passed it on to them? You think they would take comfort in knowing you had used the reporting of their tragedy as a building block for promoting your PODCAST?
You used the murder of a child as a tool for your own purposes. It doesn’t matter what your reason is. Two wrongs just never make a right. If you don’t get that as a parent yet, you will, believe me.
I will be surprised if you do NOT accuse me of ‘hate’ or ‘homophobia’ because you don’t like to be caught doing something so wrong to that family. I understand what that family feels like. I can’t say if you do or not.
But I can say for certain, because of what you wrote, that you understood their loss as a dramatic opportunity to be leverage, with built-in emotional appeal. Opportunism. Is your purpose greater than respecting their privacy, especially now? The media does NOT need YOUR help to get news stories out no matter how important or representative you think your opinions are.
So, fellow parent, from my decades of parenting three kids, I’m calling you to task for taking it upon yourself to climb up onto the shoulders of a family’s terrible loss to tsk-tsk at us. You didn’t get any permission from them. And you DO need it. You’re not a member of the press. You’re just a guy grinding an axe on their pain. Just like the media. Congrats.
Your task — if you are enough of a father — is to deliver a suitable gesture of your abject apology to them. I hope you are not the type of person who never admits to any wrongdoing, and therefore never apologizes for anything, unless it is costing you something. There are a lot of those kinds of people around.
The right thing to do would be to delete every shred of this error of yours and pray for that family’s healing, because you certainly didn’t help them by presuming to make their dead son your cause’s poster-boy.
The point is a terrible death in their family. The death was apparently caused by a brutal infanticide. The cause of that death is not anything else–not even your little cause-mapping exercise can change that.
You say your podcast is about parenting. My advice to you as one parent to another is to think twice about a family’s feelings before the next time you decide to use a death in their family for your gain–no matter how tragic their loss may be, or how “small” your gain may be. They’ve had enough taken from them. You deserve to take no profit from their loss.
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:51 am
Kevin, you were obviously deeply affected by Scott’s post. But for the life of me, I can’t understand what your complaint actually is. This story was widely covered by the MSM. Scott has every right to comment on the story.
You say “You have used The Podcast Network to deliver insult to the injury of a mortally wounded family”. Where was the insult in Scott’s post? That Ronnie Paris was homophobic? This is a family that allowed a child to be beaten, from the age of five months old, until his death at the age of 3. Calling the father “homophobic”, when he has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for second-degree murder and aggravated child abuse, is hardly an insult.
Did Scott “consider the family’s feelings” when he wrote his post? I don’t know. However, the family that allowed this crime to happen deserves the glare of the spotlight to be shined upon them. By the media and by all of us. We need to ask ourselves how this was allowed to happen. We need to ask ourselves what drives people to such horrific crimes. We need to ask ourselves how we prevent further crimes of this nature. The family that allows such crimes to occur no longer have a right to privacy. That’s why the father has been jailed and the mother charged with child neglect.
I don’t believe he needs the family’s permission to discuss it here and he isn’t grinding an axe. He didn’t even editorialize on the story. He just repeated the facts.
I’m not going to accuse you of ‘hate’ or ‘homophobia’, but your vituperative over-reaction certainly suggests that you have serious issues and I’d suggest counselling.
August 23rd, 2005 at 5:10 am
Kenn, I appreciate your thoughtful and sensitive response - yes, this kind of violence, especially against children, must be stopped.
Kevin, one of my show’s major themes is that violence and prejudice directed against LGBT people is wrong. It hurts LGBT people and their families. It also hurts children. This story is sadly illustrative of that fact.
I am not going to say, as you predict, that you are homophobic, but given that most media sources, whether they be TV shows, radio, magazines, blogs or even podcasts regularly discuss news stories, as I do here, I’m not sure what’s got you so worked up. If you’re saying its wrong for me to express my outrage that a three-year old was murdered because he was perceived to be gay, and if you think that its wrong for me to use that as a painful reminder that all hatred and violence against LGBT people is wrong, well, I disagree. If you think that ANYONE discussing a news story is wrong, because it may bring pain the subjects of that story, I’m flattered that you took time out from contacting every television, radio, and news station in the world to post on my blog.
By the way, the killer of the three year old just got sentenced to thirty years.