{"id":578,"date":"2010-05-07T11:03:38","date_gmt":"2010-05-07T11:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2010\/05\/laity-and-leaders-sipple-niasse-bingham-beamerand-rekers.html"},"modified":"2010-05-07T11:03:38","modified_gmt":"2010-05-07T11:03:38","slug":"laity-and-leaders-sipple-niasse-bingham-beamerand-rekers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2010\/05\/laity-and-leaders-sipple-niasse-bingham-beamerand-rekers.html","title":{"rendered":"Laity and Leaders: Sipple, Niasse, Bingham, Beamer&#8230;and Rekers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--StartFragment--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">When Sarah Jane Moore attempted to assassinate President<br \/>\nGerald Ford, her aim was deflected by disabled former Marine Oliver Sipple, and<br \/>\nFord&#8217;s life saved.<span>&nbsp; <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/articles.sfgate.com\/2008-01-01\/news\/17148780_1_life-sentence-oliver-sipple-ford-s-life\">Sipple was gay.<\/a><br \/>\nUnder prevailing Republican bigotry and Democratic hypocrisy, he would not be<br \/>\nallowed to serve his country in uniform.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Faisal Shazhad&#8217;s attempted car bomb was first discovered and<br \/>\nthe police therefore alerted by <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/2010\/05\/05\/senagalese-muslim-vendor\/\">Aliou Niasse, a Muslim<\/a>. <span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span>Shahzad&#8217;s Muslim identity was<br \/>\nemphasized, but hardly anyone mentioned that the same was true for Niasse. To<br \/>\ndo so would mess up the good guys vs bad guys narrative that most reporters<br \/>\nseem to prefer over actually reporting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Mark Bingham, one of the heroic passengers who attacked the<br \/>\nhijackers of Flight 93, preventing them from flying the airliner into the White<br \/>\nHouse or Capital at the cost of their lives, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2001\/dec\/02\/september11.terrorism1\">was gay<\/a>.<span>&nbsp; <\/span>Another, Todd Beamer, was a serious Christian. &nbsp;<span>&nbsp;<\/span>Each acted with bravery and<br \/>\nintegrity. Where it counted, each had more in common than where they differed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">As do most people despite different faiths, sexual orientations, or races. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\nUnfortunately, leaders of organizations emphasizing these distinctions often maximize<br \/>\ntheir personal power by &nbsp;exaggerating differences between their<br \/>\ngroup and everybody else.<span>&nbsp; <\/span>Trusting<br \/>\ntheir leaders, the rank and file are usually all too easily manipulated.<span>&nbsp; <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">As the Catholic hierarchy continually reminds us and recent <a href=\"http:\/\/chattahbox.com\/us\/2010\/05\/06\/rentboy-comes-clean-admits-giving-nude-long-stroke-sexual-massage-to-anti-gay-leader\/\">escapades of George Rekers, an Evangelical enemy of gay people<\/a>,<span>&nbsp;has<\/span>&nbsp;reinforced, such<br \/>\nleadership often sets far higher standards of behavior for others than they apply<br \/>\nto themselves. And that is putting it gently.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><\/p>\n<p><!--EndFragment--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Sarah Jane Moore attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford, her aim was deflected by disabled former Marine Oliver Sipple, and Ford&#8217;s life saved.&nbsp; Sipple was gay. Under prevailing Republican bigotry and Democratic hypocrisy, he would not be allowed to serve his country in uniform. Faisal Shazhad&#8217;s attempted car bomb was first discovered and the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Laity and Leaders: Sipple, Niasse, Bingham, Beamer...and Rekers - A Pagan&#039;s Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2010\/05\/laity-and-leaders-sipple-niasse-bingham-beamerand-rekers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Laity and Leaders: Sipple, Niasse, Bingham, Beamer...and Rekers - A Pagan&#039;s Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When Sarah Jane Moore attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford, her aim was deflected by disabled former Marine Oliver Sipple, and Ford&#8217;s life saved.&nbsp; Sipple was gay. Under prevailing Republican bigotry and Democratic hypocrisy, he would not be allowed to serve his country in uniform. Faisal Shazhad&#8217;s attempted car bomb was first discovered and the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2010\/05\/laity-and-leaders-sipple-niasse-bingham-beamerand-rekers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"A Pagan&#039;s Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-05-07T11:03:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gus diZerega\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Laity and Leaders: Sipple, Niasse, Bingham, Beamer...and Rekers - A Pagan&#039;s Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2010\/05\/laity-and-leaders-sipple-niasse-bingham-beamerand-rekers.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Laity and Leaders: Sipple, Niasse, Bingham, Beamer...and Rekers - A Pagan&#039;s Blog","og_description":"When Sarah Jane Moore attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford, her aim was deflected by disabled former Marine Oliver Sipple, and Ford&#8217;s life saved.&nbsp; Sipple was gay. Under prevailing Republican bigotry and Democratic hypocrisy, he would not be allowed to serve his country in uniform. 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