Alice Hoagland, whose son Mark Bingham was killed on September 11, 2001, appeared on NBC’s “Today Show” in the wake of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden’s death and spoke of her pride in both her son’s heroism and the actions of the U.S. military and intelligence community.
Senator John McCain, who delivered a eulogy at Bingham’s funeral, told reporters for the Washington Blade back in 2008 that he considered Bingham one of his gay heroes.
Bingham, who was a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93, was one of a small group of individuals who confronted the terrorist hijackers and fought to divert the flight into a Pennsylvania field in order to prevent further death and destruction. Hoagland spoke of her son’s bravery during the attacks, describing him and his fellow passengers as “a little group of guys in the back of a pitching 747 that took a vote and decided they were going to run forward armed with nothing more than their fists and whatever they could find on board to fight real evil — people who were determined to kill them and anyone else they could on the ground.”
Upon learning that Osama bin Laden — the source of that evil and mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks — is finally dead after nearly ten years, Hoagland said “I think it is a point in time of which the American people can be very proud, which we can take stock in and realize how very valuable our intelligence community and our military are.”
The momentous occasion of bin Laden’s death can’t help but remind us all of those heroes and innocent victims who lost their live on September 11, 2001. Mark Bingham was indeed a gay hero, and one of many other such heroes who died serving the best interests of the American people.
So McCain calls this man a hero. But when it comes to treating gay people equally in society, forget it. Republicans dont speak out of both corners of their mouth.
they have two mouths, one at each end of their alimentary canal. The uppoer one speaks truth when its convenient, the lower one is almost always crapping on some minority – especially gays.