Well, you see, because…

SAN FRANCISCO — Three Hayward cousins are facing hate crime charges after a man was shot in the face with a BB gun because the attackers believed he was gay, according to San Francisco authorities.

A video of the assault and other similar crimes was recorded by the attackers and is being held as evidence, assistant district attorney Brian Buckelew said.

Mohammad Habibzada, 24, Shafiq Hashemi, 21, and Sayed Bassam, 21, were arrested about 15 minutes after the shooting, when police spotted a car in the area that matched a description given by the victim. The suspects have addresses in Hayward.

Because it was committed by guys with Muslim names. You have to take heart, gays, because in the daily wingnut Two Minutes Hate, Muslims appear FAR more often than gays.

Do they know if this was specifically motivated by religious animus? Not yet. But they do know enough that

All three suspects are facing three felony counts and one misdemeanor. They include assault with a deadly weapon with a hate crime enhancement, discharge of a firearm with gross negligence, and attempted mayhem.

Okay, so they know it was motivated by anti-gay animus. First, let’s enter the mind of the wingnuts reacting to this.* In their widdle world, liberals absolutely LOVE conservative Muslims. They arrive at this conclusion because They Are Not All That Bright, and can’t compute the idea that liberals might detest the values of radical anti-everything Muslims and simultaneously** have an issue with insdiscriminately bombing the hell out of anything we please in that part of the world. They can’t grasp the idea that “not bombing” does not equal “surrender,” because wingnuts only understand force when it allows them to feel like their penises are being vicariously represented in the fight.

Okay, let’s visit the wingnuts. Mark Steyn of National Review Online:

Hmm. “Three cousins from Hayward,” huh? Mormons opposed to gay marriage? Knuckledragging rednecks insecure about their own sexuality? But no. Instead, a little touch of old Amsterdam comes to the city by the bay.

The title of his post? “Celebrate Diversity.” He’s absolutely gleeful that this was done by the big bad brown people from the “turrist” part of the world. It would be a valid point if we didn’t have such a long history of hate crimes against gays perpetrated by all manner of Christian/Christian-influenced terrorist born and bred right here in the good old US of A.*** But see, again, this is the weirdness of being in a wingnut brain, because people like Mark Steyn think that liberals want nothing more than to roll out the red carpet for radical Muslims.

Next up is Daniel Blatt from GayWingnut,**** who has also convinced himself that mean liberal gays don’t seem to mind when radical Muslims assault/kill gays:

In writing about a story in the San Francisco Chronicle about three Muslim men charged with “firing a BB rifle at the face of a man they believed was gay,” our reader Jenny asks, “when will gay activist groups actually start being activist in aid of saving lives by ending the mass immigration of anti-everyone Muslims?“

Now, I certainly wouldn’t go as far as her, but she raises an interesting issue: will gay groups cover this with the same degree of frenzied fervor they would if the three men were evangelical Christians?

Um. Wow. First of all, “Jenny” is expressing a sentiment that has nothing to do with gay people, but everything to do with racism against the millions of peaceful, nice Muslims in the world, some of whom emigrate from their home countries to the United States. As I’ve said before, gay wingnuttia really has nothing to do with gay rights or equality, but rather is about taking weak Republican talking points and inserting the word “gay” into them, a la “We should listen to Bill Kristol and pre-emptively bomb all Muslim countries to death because, um, they’re mean to gays?” or “We should continue to pass irresponsible tax cuts and run the US based on discredited and disproven Laffer economics, because, um, gays with money likey the tax cut?” or “We love the anti-gay Sarah Palin, because, hellloooooo, DIVAAAAAAA!!!!!”

Right. Anyway. But secondly, Blatt is engaging in the same kind of barely-contained glee as Mark Steyn is. For gay wingnuts, Republicans and Evangelicals are the chosen people, even if said chosen people hate their guts, and all Muslims are the enemy. And they participate in the same Two Minutes Hate as straight wingnuts, so they’re essentially willing to throw themselves prostrate before people who don’t believe in their inherent dignity, because hey, at least they hate Muslims more!

But here’s the thing that completely tears their strange views about liberals to shreds, as explained by Roger Ailes (no, not the evil one):

The biggest problem Steyn has (apart from his poodle toupee) is that the men have been arrested and charged, and face enhanced punishment for committing hate crimes regardless of their religion. So [Steyn] can’t pretend that our godless liberal enclaves are under the thrall of Sharia law. If convicted, the three gentleman will recieve serious punishment, and that punishment will be enhanced because of their bigotry. And Steyn will remain free to spew his bigotry, as long as he doesn’t act on it.

The system works.

Exactly. You see, the reason gays in the West focus a lot more on anti-gay violence perpetrated by Christian rednecks is that most of the anti-gay violence in the West is perpetrated by Christians of some sort. I should point out here that arguably the most violent anti-gay sub-population in the United States are Slavic Evangelicals, who live largely just over the mountain from San Francisco in Sacramento. I wonder if Dan Blatt and Mark Steyn will go just as crazy next time one from that population murders/assaults a gay person! (Actually, no, I don’t care.)

Meanwhile, on the international front, we’ve been spending a lot of time on the anti-gay violence perpetrated by Christians in Uganda, because that’s something we can do something about. I completely grant that the hatred and violence LGBT people are subjected to in Islamic countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia is awful, but at the same time, I also know that supporting Bill Kristol’s or Daniel Pipes’ latest wet dreams about bombing the holy hell out of Islamic countries in the name of protecting their gays is beyond stupid. For one thing, their foreign policy ideas are a complete failure on all fronts. But if we’re going to talk about the plight of gays, let’s talk about the fact that the religious government that has taken root in Iraq since neoconservative wingnuts cheerled us into war with that country in the name of showing them how big our dicks are, is extremely anti-gay! Violence against gay people in Iraq has only gone up since we deposed Saddam Hussein. Hussein was a bad guy, obviously, but because he was secular, there are certain things he didn’t put up with. Women had it better under his rule, and so did gays.

The common thread here is that extremist religion is the prime motivator of anti-gay animus and violence, and if we had a Christian theocracy like many in the US dream of, we’d have a hell of a lot more anti-gay violence on our plates.

So yes, wingnuts, it’s outrageous that this happened, and the proper authorities are dealing with it. But try to conceal your pants-wetting glee over the fact that Muslims did it, because the point you’re trying to score is one that doesn’t exist outside the echo chambers of your minds.

*Canary recommended.

**Two thoughts, one brain, same time?!?!

***Oh look, radicalized conservative Jews have done stuff like this too! I guess the problem is religously-motivated hatred of ALL kinds?

****I would call it “Intellectual Chernobyl” but that’s already taken.