Walt Fisher’s obituary, after he lost his battle with lung cancer, was notable for what it didn’t reveal. When the 57-year-old from York, Pa., died in the spring of 2011, the local Daily Record reported his place of birth (Hershey); the names of his parents (Harold and Mary, née Spangler); his employer (JoS. A. Bank Clothiers); and even his hobbies (music, reading and spending time at the beach). Reference was also made to those who survived him: “a brother, Patrick E. Kling, and his wife, Wendy of Hummelstown; a step-brother, David Kling, and his wife, Susan of Harrisburg; a nephew, Noah Kling; and an aunt, Doris Eby of Hershey.”
Despite listing some of those Fisher held dear, the obituary was silent about the most important person in his life for his final 14 years: Nothing was said of Albert Snyder.
Of course, mention of Al would have raised some eyebrows. He had been in the newspapers plenty in recent months, on account of the landmark free speech case he had lost at the Supreme Court, just 10 weeks before Walt’s death. Al’s court fight had grown out of the battle he had been waging for years against a homophobic church that disrupted his son’s military funeral in 2006—a case that raised monumental questions about the limits of free speech, to say nothing of the bounds of human decency. Desperate to advance a convoluted belief that soldiers’ deaths demonstrated God’s disdain for America’s homosexuals, the Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church had, in the years since the American invasion of Iraq, staged headline-grabbing protests at the funerals of military personnel. The subsequent court battle Al waged over his son’s funeral brought him a measure of grim notoriety, but never publicly revealed—until now—was Al’s added motivation for fighting the cult that wrongly, viciously implied that his son was gay—namely that Al, who was Walt’s partner, is himself gay.
He Looked Hate in the Eye - Michael Smerconish - POLITICO Magazine
No comments:
Post a Comment