[Photocopied Dallas Times Herald editorial: Yes, eventually words can kill] Part: 1 of 2
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Dallas Times Herald Thursday, January 12, 1989
Yes, eventually words can killB IGOTRY KILLS. IT KILLS
people by a process, almost like
play. The end of the process, the
third act, is familiar. Victims are lined up at
ditches and shot, herded into gas chambers,
starved, beaten, tricked with smallpox blan-
kets, lynched from trees. In subsequent re-
morse, history decries these grotesque cul-
minations.
But the first act is the syndrome by
which the bigot closes his or her eyes to t'he
humanness of the intended victim - and
intention is crucial here. By choice, by in-
tention, by exercise of free will, the bigot
decides not to see the humanity of certain
other human beings. On down the road,
when the denial is well practiced and
smooth, the killing will come easily. Such is
the learning of evil.
Since early December, Dallas has been
struggling to come to grips with painful is-
sues raised in the matter of District Judge
Jack Hampton and the Richard Bednarski
murder trial. After the trial had been con-
cluded and the case legally closed, Judge
Hampton told Times Herald reporter Lori
Montgomery that he had given Bednarski
less than the full sentence allowable under
the law at least in part because Bednarski's
victims were homosexuals. Judge Hampton
called them "queers." He said the murder of
"queers" was a less serious offense than the
murder of heterosexual people.
In last Sunday's Times Herald, in a
compelling story by Ms. Montgomery, JeffCollins, David Pasztor and Jim Henderson,--
we'met these "queers" - the two men Bed-
narski was convicted of shooting to death.
John Lloyd Griffin and Tommy Lee Trim-
ble both grew up in small West Texas
towns. Both finished high school, learned
useful occupations, came to Dallas and
made productive lives for themselves.
So beloved was Johnny Griffin by the
people in his hometown that, on the day of
his funeral, every business in Sterling City
closed; more than 300 people tried to crowd
into the Church of Christ; two ministers
preached and 70 beautiful flower arrange-
ments stood around the church.
In the hours before Tommy Lee Trim-.
ble was killed, he called his mother in Cole-
man to make sure she had received the
spiritual music tapes, cards and money he
had been late in sending her for Mother's
Day.
In these and other details of their lives,
we see the stuff of human beings any of us
could have loved and valued. Both emerge
as decent, caring and responsible individu-
als.
At the very beginning of the process of
bigotry, in the use of words like "queer," a
community leader such as Judge Hampton
tries to teach the city not to see the humani-
ty of the intended victims. We all shiver
with horror when we gaze down on the
ditches and ovens that come in the end. We
must learn to feel that same shiver when
we hear the words of the first act.plow
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Dallas Times Herald. [Photocopied Dallas Times Herald editorial: Yes, eventually words can kill], clipping, January 12, 1989; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc915791/m1/1/: accessed June 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.