Yes, my gay son [Mark Bingham, right] was known in our family for bringing me flowers on my birthday and Mother’s Day. He also was known for careening down the rugby pitch, and, on the morning of September 11, 2001, for charging unarmed down the aisle of a doomed Boeing 757 to face knife-wielding Islamist thugs in a hijacked cockpit.
No one among his pick-up team of fellow passengers was asking ‘Are you straight? Are you gay?’ No one doubted that a guy who weighed 220 and stood 6’4” tall—who could run over a charging opponent on the field, and ran with the bulls in Pamplona earlier that summer—would be an asset to a desperate group trying to overcome a threat onboard an airliner.”
The world has its share of strong, heroic gay men. Gay men in sports uniforms and military uniforms have been winning America’s games and fighting America’s battles for a long time: quietly, humbly, and in the face of vicious bigotry.
Alice Hoagland, telling Carson Daly, who said that gay men couldn’t restrain a unhinged pilot, that he’s wrong, to TMZ. Alice is the mother of Mark Bingham, who died on 9/11 after confronting Islamic terrorists on United Airlines Flight 93.
Photo via Wikipedia
Caleb
Carson Daly is the ultimate douchebag. Enough said.
Mark
I wouldn’t know Carson Daly from Herman Schmultz, but he hasn’t doubled down on it – he apologized twice and met with GLAAD in record time. OK already. I’m going to go back not knowing him now. I could understand the hate if he hadn’t bothered to say anything after. But he has. Let’s shoot him in the head.
The Real Mike in Asheville
No doubt Mark Bingham is a hero. And no doubt his mother has been an outspoke ally and comforter.
Note, though, to Mark’s mother, you don’t need be 220 pounds of muscle on a 6’4″ frame to be heroic or brave. The true modern beginning of the gay rights movement was started at the Stonewall Inn, with amazingly brave and heroic lithe boys in drag fighting against the officially sanctioned NYPD’s brash and outrageous discriminatory thugs who attempted, and ultimately failed, to bully the gay community. And let us not forget the amazingly heroic and brave lesbians who came to the help and rescue of the thousands of HIV+/AIDS gay patients with love, support, food and comfort.
There are so many heroes out there, and many victims of homophobia. Sure, had Matthew Shepard been 220 pounds and 6’4″, he could have beaten the shit out of his murderers. But you don’t need be 220 and 6’4″ to be a hero.
WillBFair
But Ms Alice won’t be given a spot on the radio to defend us. So Daly’s comments will go unchallenged, which is typical. It’s the age old media strategy of demonizing us to distract attention from their boss’s shenanagans. And they’ve gotten away with it for so long because our leadership is totally inept. How about gladd making a pr spot on national tv staring Alice? Won’t happen. Instead, they send a press statement, which the press is free to ignore.
Brand
Her point was that gay people are not all the one Carson Daly stereotype of fey feinting flowers, and a plane full of gay people would likely include several perfectly capable people who would not only instinctively stand up against, but could actually succeed in overcoming, a bunch of armed terrorists. And that at least her son was one gay person who did so, in the most indelible such situation in our nation’s history. So for Carson Daly to make the joke in reference to this sort of incident is not only an insult to the gay community in general and to the sort of gay person who isn’t up to a fight in general, but a particular insult to the memory of that one particular gay man who Daly should damn well remember as a national hero. Even if you forget the name Mark Bingham, you should remember the fact of Mark Bingham, and all the gay service men and women who have fought in the longest war in our nation’s history that fateful day precipitated, particularly as the damn thing isn’t even over yet.
Thank you, Alice Hoagland, for raising a son like Mark, and for honoring his memory on behalf of all Americans but particularly those who are maligned for not being like him.
Delius
Carson Daly is a Christian bigot.
He once went to seminary to be a priest.
No doubt where all this hate comes from.
He should be fired.
CBRad
Good good good for Alice Hoagland !
Belize
A heroic gay man?! A hero in the 9/11 flight?! (gasp)
Wait, JayKay! Don’t comment. Let me handle this. I wouldn’t want you to get deterred from your noble quest of throwing away all of the shaving cream and razors you can find in your house. How else will your beard grow and actual beard and enough body hair so that you can pretend she’s a bear you’d love to fuck?
I will do the commenting for you because I love you.
JayKay: “HA! If he’s a real hero, he would’ve been able to stop 9/11. Why, if I was the one in that plane, I would’ve choke-slammed them terrorists like those pro-wrestlers in the WWE do. That’s right! I know self-defense! I know how to defend myself because I watch the WWE. The WWE is my porn because it’s American and it’s got all them hot men huggin’ each other. I don’t watch real hardcore porn! Real hardcore porn is for liberals who don’t get jealous of seeing other people get fucked in the ass by real men because liberals get fucked in the ass by real men too! That’s why they get AIDS and conservative folks like myself don’t. And another thing, I ain’t afraid of no terrorists?! Why, if only my sex starved existence wouldn’t tempt me to rape every single person I run into in the communal shower, I’d join the American army!”
There you go. See how much I love you JayKay? I’m like really obsessed with you because you are like so sexy in those easy access overhauls.
Kyle
The stereotype gay men will awlays be confronted with is that of being weak and cowardice. The stereotype Jewish people will be confronted with is that of greedy and sneaky. The stereotype of black people is that of low IQ, violent, and lazy. It doesn’t matter what is said or done, these stereotypes will always exist for oppressed groups. Where these stereotypes came from? I don’t know. But, they will never go away, and they are here to stay – regardless.
CBRad
A number of gays despise the memory of Bingham, though, as “too macho”, and too Republican.
Kyle
@CBRad: The sad part is, is I have no clue this guy even is or was. What does that say about the media and gay people? Not a lot.
WillBFair
Oh, I forgot Baron von Steuben, and Alexander the Great, and the Norwegian lesbians who saved so many lives by ‘ferrying’ them off the island. We have arguments that would destroy the competition. We also have dingbat leaders who are well paid to keep their mouths shut.
Kyle
@WillBFair: Is that taught in high schools? No. Did you learn in school or on your own? I’m guessing on your own. Gay people were omitted from my high school history books under the WWII section.
CBRad
@WillBFair: Arthur C. Clarke once stated (using those historical examples and a number of others) that maybe the better argument about not allowing gays in the military is because they’re TOO warlike !
Christopher Banks
I remember at the time of 9/11 that the world’s media made it quite clear that Mark Bingham was gay in stories about memorial services – wasn’t his partner presented with an American flag? – however when his story was told on New Zealand television (at length, because they went into the whole Flight 93 story) the gay stuff was all edited out and ignored. I can’t tell you how upsetting that was, not just because of the opportunity to ‘educate’ people about how diverse and ‘valuable’ we are in society, but because his life was edited posthumously by arseholes because it just didn’t fit their prejudices. Other 9/11 heroes and victims had husbands and wives mentioned in detail.
CBRad
@Kyle: They didn’t tell you about Ernst Roehm !?!
Kyle
@CBRad: I learned about him on my own.
CBRad
@Christopher Banks: It was basically known all over the U.S. too, with just..I think…a minimum of censoring. Though it WAS omitted from that movie about that flight.
Kyle
@Christopher Banks: Christopher, did the American national media: CNN, Fox News, etc. cover his story as an openly gay 9/11 hero?
getagripalready
Lets not now act like we dont know that most gay men are effeminate and that Bingham is in the minority of butch gays. Unless you are misogynistic theres nothing wrong with fem men.
Theres plenty of courage in feminity: Women may not be biologically inclined to leap into every bar brawl but they snap if their babies are threatened. If you’ve ever wondered why you only see pics of starving children and women (no men) its becuase the men leave drought stricken areas asap, whereas the women would rather face death than leave their children behind. Now thats courage! Gay men have got to quite this obsession with being perceived as masculine. Your brain operates more like your mom than your dad and straight men know it. So challenge their misogyny but dont pretend you respond the same way they do to perceived threats.
CBRad
@getagripalready: F–k that ! My brain definitely takes after my father more than my dopey mother. And I’m glad to say my father created a man who’d outdo his own ruthlessness, and I’ll kick his ass through the wall if he says one wrong word… (But I’ll agree there’s nothing wrong with being a female or effeminate or any of that if that’s what you genuinely are. And there IS such a thing as feminine strength too, agreed).
Brand
@CBRad: That’s absurd on the face of it, and a cowardly way of writing it. Are you one of those number? If so, out yourself as this sort of moronic hater. If not, why be a provocateur by amplifying this number rather than waiting for one of them to come along and make the dumb comment themselves? That’s worse than Carson Daly.
No person could despise Bingham’s memory as a gay person. They may be jerks who happen to be gay, but it doesn’t stem from their gayness, it stems from their idiocy and their prejudice, and as such are not really relevant.
I know plenty of people who I would say were “too Republican”. But it stems from the fact that they’re hypocritical lying pricks who don’t give a damn about anybody, and not from the fact that they’re Republicans.
If you can call someone who had the balls and the brawn to stand up and charge a group of armed terrorists “too macho”, someone who sacrificed himself in a heroic action on behalf of his nation, saving potentially hundreds of lives and the major scar it would have been to have had the U.S. Capitol or White House destroyed, then you’re myopically missing the point. “Too macho” and “too effeminate” are all part of the same thing and pretty much cancel one another out. I thank God there are people macho enough to do the things Carson Daly and his self-described colleagues are too jaded and fey to do themselves.
To begrudge a fallen hero for exactly the quality that made him that hero…wow, that’s just stunningly, willfully offensive.
Ok, ok
@Mark: Isaiah Washington said less and lost his job. The soccer guy said less and was suspended.
Why are you defending the tool who called us a bunch of useless fa ggots?
@getagripalready: Making up garbage and spewing it as fact. You don’t know that “most” gay men are effeminate, as that man’s mother said no one knew he was gay, just like you come across gay men everyday you don’t know are gay.
Clearly you are closeted and only know about gay men by what you see on television because no true out gay male would actually believe a vast majority of us are effeminate. Leave your house, and try meeting other gay men in real life, then get back to me. Oh and FYI there are plenty of effeminate straight men, being effeminate has nothing to do with sexuality, effeminate gay men are just able to be more upfront about it.
And reading through the rest of your post with idiotic pseudo-science that has absolutely no scientific backing or credibility I see you are just an idiot overall. Don’t pull things out of your rear and show it to the rest of us with a smile on your face.
CBRad
@Brand: I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I’m saying is that I’ve seen hatred of Mark Bingham and “his ilk” on gay message boards and blogs.
CBRad
@Brand: YOU, I guess, don’t know about that wicked school of gays who, instead of saying “too effeminate or too manly, it’s all fine..” say “ANY gaym an who is a Republican, or too ‘straight’, is a self-hating enemy of gay people!” Maybe you have to live in NYC to be familiar with that Andrew Towle, Andrew Belonsky, David Hauslaib, etc., crowd…
Alex Sarmiento
I never considered Mark Bingham a hero, because even though he did prevent more deaths, 3,000 people DIED that day, and the victims died unnecessary deaths. The US government is as much to blame for those deaths as those Saudi hijackers and Osama bin Laden. I still believe that to this day, and it is not meant to denigrate the memory of Mark Bingham and everyone else.
Having said all that, Carson Daly sucks. He’s a terrible host. Just watch “The Voice” and you’ll see why.
Mark
OK,@CBRad: I’m not defending what he said. I’m pointing out he apologized twice. What’s your punishment? I wouldn’t miss him from anything because outside of a radio show somewhere I have no clue what he does.
Mark
The above was for OK, OK – as you could guess.
Brand
@CBRad: I do know about them (in the abstract, I don’t know your Andrews), and I was asking you are you one of them, or merely taking it upon yourself to amplify their numbers by representing their poisonous position in absentia; your most recent comment suggests it’s the latter.
Because it’s not really relevant to the discussion that someone you can’t stand, and isn’t here, has something against this guy on some ridiculous basis. What on earth does that add to the discussion except the same baseless snarkiness and iconoclasm you in your most recent post here—like Carson Daly in his defense—now seem to distance yourself from? The comment I was responding to adds a dissonance that says, “hey, you can find somebody who hates anything, so why bother caring about anything,” or “hey, some gays (allegedly) idiotically hate him, so why should we stand up for him, or why should his mother stand up for us?” If any of that were really your opinion, that would be one lousy thing, but considering it doesn’t even seem to be your opinion, it actually seems worse to bring it up.
Nolan
Oh my fellow homosexuals, stop being so sensitive all the time, and try to take a joke or two. I am an out and proud gay man but that doesn’t mean I can’t take some jokes. I am sure Carson didn’t mean any harm. Grow up already!
CBRad
@Brand: I have every right to bring it up. As much right as anybody else posting on this blog, anyway. And if you had to suffer through gay hatred of Mark Bingham as much as I did, you might bring it up too.
CBRad
@Brand: As well as gay mockery of Mychal Judge.
Donnie
I live in PA, so Flight 93 is all over the news about once a month And I had NO IDEA this guy was gay. They should report that on the news… I wonder if the repubs would still call him a hero?
Ok, ok
@Nolan: You’re telling us to grow up? Are you dense?
He’s the one mocking us in the way a 12 year old boy would. He’s the one who needs to grow up and you do too if you think anything like this ABOUT YOURSELF or anyone else is funny. Silence about things like this or even going along with it is what allows homophobia, racism, etc to grow and fester. He says it and then another person says it and so on and so forth. It’s wrong, get real.
@Mark: Losing his hosting gig on The Voice which has had gay contestants and the show made it a point to say they don’t ask their gay contestants to keep quiet about it. He’s getting interviews based on that show so he’s representing that show and NBC when he sticks his foot in his mouth making bigoted homophobic comments like a child who doesn’t know any better.
JayKay
@getagripalready:
“Theres plenty of courage in feminity”
ROFLOLMAO. Holy fuck that’s some quality trolling.
Jacob
@JayKay: “Trolling: One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument”
No sir, YOU are the troll.
FunMe
@Christopher Banks: Good points Christopher. Perhaps highlight this incident and bringing up Mark Bingham and what he did to help others, will get people educated that gays have been helping others, too.
Gigi
@Kyle: You just weren’t paying attention.
Z
Daly’s statement was not a momentary lapse of judgement; this was not some offhand comment that just slipped out. It was a tirade of several sentences that required him to articulate and choose to express this vitriolic hatred. As I understand it, famous people generally have a lot of money. If Daly wants forgiveness we ought demand he make a sizable contribution toward furthering gay equality.
Ridge
@CBRad: “A number of gays despise the memory of Bingham, though, as “too macho”, and too Republican.”
The ‘gays’ that feel this way are pathetic and weak and likely the exact physical opposite, full of insecurities, unable to take care of themselves….
Macmantoo
I had heard about Bingham being gay within a few days of 9/11 when they were talking about the ones who died trying to stop the terrorists on Flight 93. And yes he is a hero. And no I’ve never heard any gays put him down. While they didn’t stop the terrorist from destroying the plane and the people on it, they did stop the terrorist from flying it in to the White House or the Capitol building which one was the choice of target. And for that they saved many many lives while losing their own.
B
Re No. 41 – one difference between that flight and the others was that the passengers on it knew that the other planes had been flown into buildings – people were using their
cell phones in the back of the plane. Without that information, and given all the previous incidents where an airplane was hijacked, the smart thing to do would have been to stay calm and wait until the pilot landed the plane – previous hijackers wanted hostages to trade for some dubious person who was in jail or wanted to fly to Cuba so that Fidel could throw the hijackers in jail. Fortunately for us, these passengers found out in time and managed to save the U.S. from a disaster: if the hijackers had managed to wipe out the capitol building, it would have decapitated the government, causing major problems for years afterwards beyond the immediate loss of life.
Auntie Mame
Why does anyone care what Carson Daly has to say? What a waste of time.
jason
Carson Daly is apparently a Democrat voter. Nuff said.
Brand
@jason: jason is apparently a Troll with his head up his Nuff.
Ealan14
Come on, I can’t believe this has blown up like it has. Carson Daly was attempting (unwisely) to make fun of himself- and it went wrong. He NEVER said anything about Mark Bingham! And he’s already made his apologies and done the meeting with GLAAD (because apparently, that’s what you have to do now)
It was a poor choice of jokes, but it didn’t seem mean-spirited or motivated by any bias or bigotry. It was just a bad joke.
Grant Mealey
Oh my ……condolences
Rolando P. Cabiluna
God bless Mark.
Jack Gearing
RIP. Great story
Scott Haltom
I thought I heard something about him at the time. For some reason this seems to be forgotten. A lot of gay men have done a lot for this country and the world and apparently it means nothing to anyone. We are still treated with hatred. Those who hate us should keep quiet and try to be a better example than they are. God bless Mark.
Karen Piercy
Thank you.
Cärl Ê Dàv?d
lets not forget Mark.
Douglas Cooper-Fleming
I used to play rugby and Mark was also a gay rugby player. Today a large gay rugby tournament in named in honor of him, the Bingham Cup.
I took this photo at the WTC site last December.
Jane Mays
He will not be forgotten. See you in heaven, my brother.
Diane Lyle
ya Some of the best and i don’t even know him!! RIP and look what gays are going through today ??? very sad
Harold DV
ð???
Kalman Nagy Urr
You americans are so naive that it hurts… Your own government did the attack! Your own government killed those innocent people… You should file a class-action-lawsuit against the U.S.A.’s government!
Johnny Mulkerrin
True hero!
Notony Ourlife
Thank you for sharing this.
Scott Groves
Hero… So many Heros that day
Louie Mars
I still don’t believe it…911 was an inside job, and where is the plane wreckage and bodies?
Kalman Nagy Urr
How could the world’s strongest bastion of defense “THE PENTAGON” be attacked? Please explain! If you can’t then you find the answer…
BootBlackingMuse
Rest well Mark. While I didn’t know you, I know one of your friends who says the sweetest words about you. You are not forgotten and remain a hero.
Ms. Alice Hoagland – While I hope that you do not read the responses because some are not fit to be read, I also hope that in your grief you know your son is a true hero. I hope for you as well that when you think about your son you are able to smile with pride what a good man he is.
To Mark’s friends – I ache for your loss, especially on this day. Please remember him always, not only as a hero but as your smiling friend and brother.
I wish each of you hope and peace.
Bob Pattinson
Surely biopic about this wonderful guy is long overdue.
Sidney Johnson
I dont care if he is GAY he is a real man and more people should be like him and STAND UP and fight
Gee Rosato
He got the other passengers to fight them