Last week, a real case of attempted political terrorism occurred when the conservative Christian group the Family Research Council (FRC) was shot up by a man openly hostile to their message, and media coverage was largely dismissive of it.
Floyd Lee Corkins II, a 28- year-old supporter of gay rights and native of Virginia, walked into the headquarters of the FRC with a bag full of Chick-fil-A sandwiches and ammunition. He entered under the guise of an intern (surely thinking that Chick-fil-A sandwiches would make him appear supportive of their cause), announced something to the effect of “I don’t like your politics” and began shooting. Luckily he was a terrible shot, and managed only to wound one security guard. No one was killed.
Further reinforcing that his actions were motivated by his disgust for the Christian values of the FRC, Corkins told the guard who took away his gun, “Don’t shoot me, it was not about you, it was what this place stands for.”
This is not a man whose actions were the result of his being mentally disturbed. Unlike Jared Loughner, Giffords’ shooter, he didn’t ask politicians “What is government if words have no meaning?” He didn’t dabble in conspiracy theory. This was a man with a mainstream political ideology who attempted to kill those he disagreed with.
The media did not do a great job of reporting this. It took CNN nearly three hours after the shooting took place to report it. Others made excuses for Corkins, citing that the Southern Poverty Law Center considers the FRC a hate group, placing them in the same category as the Ku Klux Klan, Stormfront and the Westboro Baptist Church. This is an absurd charge, but even if it weren’t it shouldn’t be seen as justification for Corkins’ actions as some media outlets appear to think.
A contributor to the website Mediaite, which focuses coverage on the media and politics, wrote an article comparing the situation to previous shootings, and specifically the calls to not “politicize” those tragedies.
When commenting on a video of FRC President Tony Perkins discussing the tragedy and the reasons why it happened, Mediaite contributor Jon Bershad rejected Perkins’ assertion that the FRC being classified as a hate group contributed to the shooting. He said this was just another attempt to politicize a tragedy.
But Bershad forgets that a tragedy that is inherently political doesn’t need to be politicized by the media. Corkins did that for them when he called the political positions of the FRC the primary reason for his actions.
This simply can’t be compared to the Sarah Palin “crosshairs” controversy following the Gabby Giffords shooting, because Jared Loughner was not motivated by mainstream political thought, or anything remotely resembling coherent thoughts of any kind.
I don’t personally think that the SPLC was responsible for the crime because they listed the FRC as a hate group. Whether FRC deserves to be ranked alongside the Ku Klux Klan and the Westboro Baptist Church is a totally different question than why Floyd Corkins decided to shoot at people he disagreed with.
Not every tragedy is political. The media needs to understand this so that when a tragedy that is explicitly political occurs, they cover it properly, and this is not what happened in the case of the shooting last week.
Tucker is a junior majoring in political science, economics, and public policy.
