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PDF versionLesbian couple saves 40 teens from Norway massacre
by Jamie L Manson on Aug. 05, 2011
In the first place, Hege Dalen and Toril Hansen are women. A lot of the press like their tales of heroism to fit standard narratives, in which men protect and women nurture. …
. . . You can just imagine news editors in Washington worrying that, if they pushed the story, they would be accused of promoting "the gay agenda."
"If a Married Lesbian Couple Saves 40 Teens from the Norway Massacre and No One Writes About it, Did it Really Happen?"
So asks one blogger who notes that no one in the U.S. mainstream press has picked up this story.
Campers Hege Dalen and Toril Hansen were eating supper across the lake from the ill-fated Norwegian campground. Suddenly they heard gunshots and screams. Without thinking twice, they headed into their boat and steered directly towards the gunfire.
Arriving at the shore, they began to pull youngsters into their boat. The boat could only fit 10 people at a time. So they make four round trips. Forty teenagers who otherwise might have been shot or drowned were saved because of their heroic efforts.
Why haven't we heard more about them? Roz Kaveney, a columnist for the Guardian, suspects the obvious:
In the second place, Dalen and Hansen are lesbians. In television narratives, the few heroines we are allowed to see are always heterosexual; even when they are allowed to be competent, and wear sensible action-adventure outfits, they always end up melting into some man's arms in the end.
And, of course, perhaps the greatest impediment to the couple's path to media glorification: They're legally married. Kaveney contines:
Toril and Hansen aren't the only gay heroes not to get the typical adoration from the press.
Daniel Hernandez, the 20-year-old intern for Gabrielle Giffords, is credited with saving the congresswoman's life. While gunfire continued to ring out around the Tuscon Safeway, Hernandez applied intense pressure to Giffords wounds while also checking her vital signs. Few, if any, major media stories mentioned Hernandez's sexual orientation. As with the Toril and Hansen story, that detail was mostly covered by small blogging outlets.
Some may argue that the sexual orientation of these heroes shouldn't matter. While I agree with that sentiment, I also realize that many people in our society -- particularly those segments with deep ties to their churches -- continue to demonize, degrade and disenfranchise LGBT people.
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We aren't quite at the point of acceptance and integration to let details like this go unnoted. The fact that Toril and Hansen's story hasn't come to light demonstrates the power that homophobia continues to wield in our press and our culture.
Stories like these might help some folks recognize that LGBT people not only have ordinary lives beyond their sexual orientation, they are also capable of extraordinary acts of courage and even holiness. They can even risk laying down their own lives for their brothers and sisters. Last time I checked the Gospel of John, Jesus told the disciples that there was no greater love than that.
Very true, this should be
Very true, this should be considered an act of heroism, and the Gospel does say this. People of all walks of life, sexaul orientation, race, religion, etc. etc. are capable of acts of great, selfless love. Neverthless, I find this article to be merely pro-homosexual rhetoric, avoiding the key issues and philosophical/theological of the morality of such a lifestyle.
Sadly the only image people
Sadly the only image people who have never known, worked or had a relative who is Gay is the one the Churches have given them of vile, dirty, scum of the earth, who prey on children and working to destroy heterosexual family viability. God does'nt make mistakes, people who judge others without knowing the true content/character of the person, do that. God Bless those women who made a difference in 40 childrens lives for the positive.
Patrick, your comment strikes
Patrick, your comment strikes home for me. I maintain a blog that discusses social and religious issues, and which identifies me as an alienated Catholic in a long-standing, committed same-sex partnership. My blog's "About" link informs readers that my partner and I are both theologians.
Here's a comment that a fellow Catholic considered it important to post at my blog site this week. This is a comment that is par for the course; I've had many similar comments from people who do not know me, identify themselves as Catholics, and feel free to make statements of this ilk to me as a blogger:
"You seem to have a problem with everything in the church which doesnt conform to your tired and flithy ideas . Go on and get a life.The Church has existed long before you and will continue to exist long after you.Seriously you and your lot are a bunch of Judases and thats being charitable."
What's interesting here (and this is why I'm responding to your comment, which notes that the churches identify LGBT human beings as vile and dirty) is that adjective "filthy." From someone who doesn't know me at all. But who imagines he's being charitable in using that word to describe me and "my lot." While doing so under the cover of a pseudonym . . . .
I applaud Jamie Manson for writing this outstanding article. We have much work to do in our faith communities to help educate folks about the valuable contributions LGBT people make to the world, and about the untenability of defining ourselves as people of charity while we sling around words like "filthy" to describe every gay person in the world.
Thank you William, I'am a Gay
Thank you William, I'am a Gay Catholic who has been in a relationship with Kevin since I was 19 years old, and I turn 50 in a couple of months. I'am beloved on my Job, and seen for the quality of my character, not some limited persons idea of what a Gay is. I was educated by the Catholic School System, thankfully by Sisters who showed what Christ like qualities looked like, they got their hands dirty, and if not for them I wouldnt of stayed in the Church. Its sad that Gay people cant send their Children to a Catholic School to get the basics of giving back to the World by the example of Jesus. Thank you for sharing your story of how SOME Jesus people act towards their brothers and sisters. I'am sorry some people can be so fearful of those they dont know, maybe they suffered abuse.
Patrick, thank you for your
Patrick, thank you for your reply. And congratulations on your successful long-term relationship.
You're right: there's strong support in many parts of the Catholic church for those of us who are gay and lesbian and who claim our identities as a gift from God. And you're also right: it's very unfortunate that there are also members of our faith community who lay heavy burdens on the backs of those of us who are gay and lesbian.
I'm grateful for the former, and hopeful that the latter group of fellow Catholics might begin to see that placing unwarranted burdens on the backs of their brother and sister Catholics is not what the gospel calls us to do.
If they are heroic because
If they are heroic because they are lesbian then the stories that highlight their sexual orientation are valid, even compelling. The issue is heroic behavior, two people enduring repeated and deadly threat in saving the lives of forty teens in an horrific massacre.
let me come right out and say
let me come right out and say this. I hang out and relax as much as an old man can in Ciudad Juarez, in northern Mexico, mostly sitting in the park listening to people and reading the newspaper, all times of day and night, and above all always dragging my Canon T3 snapping photos of this beautiful city and her people, labelled the most violent in the world.
At all times day and night, I encounter on the street, shall we say, a highly diverse population, enjoying one another's company, or other things, just hanging around, and as we used to say in the far more violent cities thousand of miles to the north, "watching each other's back" or watching out for one another. If anything were to happen, I know who got my back, assertively, and I know this because they have gotten me off the back of a police paddy wagon, when I was picked up for exercising my tourism along the wrong streets, and as an opportunity for a lucrative pay off, made unecessary as my highly diverse friends took care of me.
Well, this story is getting long and boring, rambling, sorry, but I just want very much to thank as always Ms. Manson for this always courageous and intelligent and informative and well written article, and to say, yes, same thing happens to me, and I am very glad for my highly diverse friends who help me out in so many ways and times, courageously, as no one else would, among us abandoned and forgotten and alone as we each are out there on the street.
Jesus ate with sinners, and so do I, and I, the worst of all, thank God for them.
Hello Jamie - I am a fellow
Hello Jamie - I am a fellow Catholic who accepts the Church's teaching regarding the proper role of human sexuality being between one woman and one man within the holy bonds of matrimony. In your opinion does that mean I demonize those who have same sex attraction or make me homophobic?
The Church may be hung up on
The Church may be hung up on homosexuality, but Jesus was so concerned, He never mentioned it once. We should emulate Jesus.
Thanks, Jamie, for letting us
Thanks, Jamie, for letting us know.
hey and how about that whole
hey and how about that whole Altar Girl issue that so terrifies our bishops?
here's the Cathedral in Ciudad Juarez last Sunday
http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlesjscanlon/sets/72157627241910949/detail/
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