Alabama Mayor Kills Self After Right-Wing Blog Outs His Cross-Dressing

Conservatism Kills.

Literally. Abortion bans increase maternal deaths, and a report by the ADL found that right-wing extremists are responsible for 75% of politically motivated deaths, compared to only 4% by left-wingers.

A review of the research on the ideological basis of political violence explains why conservatism is more deadly:

Whereas most terrorist attacks result in zero fatalities, casualties associated with attacks vary across instances. It is thus possible to examine whether followers of certain ideologies are more likely to use fatal violence, relative to, for instance, property or infrastructure crimes that do not cause deaths. Ideologies that more capably address individuals' needs should be more 'successful' at causing fatalities. Past research specifically suggests two candidate ideologies that are likely to be effective: ideologies on the political right (versus left) and religious (versus secular) ideologies. Analyses of terrorist attacks committed between 1998 and 2005 revealed that organizations subscribing to religious ideologies were the most likely to engage in lethal attacks and were responsible for a greater number of deaths. 'Leftist' groups were significantly less likely to kill than religious groups, and anarchist groups were the least likely to engage in lethal attacks. Eco-terrorists were responsible for zero lethal attacks during this period, so they were excluded from analyses. Religious ideology has also been found to increase the lethality of suicide attacks, whereas attacks perpetrated in US regions known for propagating a ‘culture of honor’ were more deadly than attacks perpetrated in other regions.

Why might this be the case? Conservatives are more likely to see the world in absolutist, dogmatic, and closure affording ways than are liberals. Conservatives are also more likely than liberals to moralize values that effectively promote violence. Conservatives value loyalty, authority, and sanctity. This is important, as research has further found that the sacralization of loyalty was positively related (whereas the sacralization of other values was either unrelated or negatively related) to the justification of violence. This suggests that conservative ideologies should have an easier time moralizing political violence than liberal ideologies.

Religious ideologies are similarly suited to addressing the previously outlined needs. Religious ideologies can provide greater certainty than secular ideologies because they rest on the authority of God. In addition, through the promise of a blessed afterlife to those who act as prescribed by the ideology, religion offers a potent avenue to significance that is unavailable to secular ideologies. Religion can more naturally moralize political values, as interpretations of Holy Scripture can convincingly link violent means to religious values and provide convincing rationale for acting on behalf of those injunctions. Furthermore, because religious ideologies cannot be directly verified, people are more reliant on social validation to demonstrate the correctness of their beliefs. Consequently, religious individuals tend to be collectivistic and are more prone to derogate and act with hostility toward adherents of other ideologies. Finally, religious fundamentalism—the form that religious ideology is likely to take among extremists—is positively related to the need for cognitive closure that foments group-centrism, and this relationship partially explains the derogation of outgroup members.

This is really sad. An alternative life for this guy is dressing the way he wants as appropriate to his activities that day and the only remarks are to compliment his outfit here and there. What a sad world those people have made for themselves.

lol, he wasn't a victim, dude was one of the minor demons, in a position of elected public office, as a republican, he held a pitchfork

We need a RemindMe bot for things like what you're doing.

If you read the original article (the one that prompted his suicide), the guy explicitly said that he didn't feel female. He was just a crossdresser.

The problem with people is that some are idiots. Regardless of what group you’re in you’ve got some really stupid assholes. Or as their fellow republicans will see them: useful idiots

Phew. I was hoping he was a GOP member. Glad this story had a happy ending.

maybe they can listen to his modern day apostle Fred Rogers when he said “I like you just the way you are.”

Right. That would be Presbyterian minister, children's show host, gave-out-full-size-candy-bars-at-Halloween Fred Rogers, yes? The one that Fox went out of their way to describe as "an evil, evil man" who was [in effect] responsible for corrupting today's youth? Well, sadly, I think I can explain why they don't listen to Mr. Rogers ...

No, but their Instagram is open to comments and is receiving them.

I checked the bird site so you don’t have to: yes the inciting article is being shared by people on both sides. The comments are almost solely defending his suicide and the hatred that sparked it.

Welp, conservatives fucking suck.