I recently came across a very interesting blog post about the “Satanic Ritual Abuse” scare of the 1980’s and early 1990’s: Inconvenient untruth, San Fernando Curt’s Blog, Talking Points Memo (TPM), June 22, 2009.

San Fernando Curt observes that the Satanic Ritual Abuse scare isn’t talked about very much anymore. He quotes and links to a Summer 2001 Women’s Quarterly article, Sex, Lies, and Audiotapes – hysteria over rape and sexual child abuse by Rael Jean Isaac, who points to the role of feminists in launching the panic. Curt claims that the reason why the SRA scare isn’t talked about very much anymore is because the feminist movement is, allegedly, a sacred cow whose mistakes no one dares discuss.

I disagree.

Curt writes:

The bad part, the downside of some movement ideas, is never addressed, never discussed. If the “right” people commit the outrage, it’s flushed down the memory hole. In a reversal of how this trendy bit of ugly slander gained traction through incessant publicity and repetition, its progenitors are protected de facto today. The subject merely has been “disappeared” from polite discussion; as relentlessly presented the crazy charge was then, so energetically ignored the entire episode is now.

But I’m not aware of any society-wide taboo on criticizing the feminist movement. Maybe such a taboo exists in Curt’s neck of the woods, but certainly not here in New York, and probably not in most other parts of the U.S.A. either.

I think there are plenty of other reasons why the SRA scare isn’t discussed much anymore. One reason may simply be the notorious American propensity for seeing last year’s news as “ancient history.”

Another reason is that the existence of false accusations of child sexual abuse is still an uncomfortable topic for many people. To this day, I suspect that a lot of people may still be afraid to speak up in defense of accused child abusers, out of fear that they might be suspected of being, themselves, perpetrators of such horrible crimes. To whatever extent discussion about the SRA scare is actually taboo, as distinct from just being seen as old news, I suspect that the main real reason is an attitude that only perpetrators would be concerned about the possibility of anyone being falsely accused.

Such attitudes are not limited to feminists; they are common among people who just haven’t thought much about the justice system and about the danger of false accusations in general.

Two other problems with Curt’s analysis:

1. Though all too many feminists did play a key role in launching the SRA scare, another feminist, Debbie Nathan, was the first major journalist to debunk the panic.
2. The feminist movement was not the sole culprit. Another factor was the scaremongering about “Satanism” that had been going on amongst evangelical Christians since the early 1970’s or so, starting with The Satan-Seller by Mike Warnke. Regarding the “recovered memory” fad in particular, another major breeding ground was self-help groups like Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA). Regarding the daycare center panics, another causative factor, as Debbie Nathan has pointed out, is that the 1980’s were a time when a lot of women felt guilty about leaving their children in daycare centers and hence were easily panicked about threats to their children there.

These days, too many public atheists come across as even more hostile toward liberals and religious moderates than toward fundamentalists. This is unfortunate, because, in my opinion, atheists and religious liberals and moderates need to stand together against the worldwide trend toward theocracy.

I’ll now respond to two posts on an atheist blog, here on WordPress.com, called “Breaking Spells.” One post, Bible Bashing Crime, contains some interesting statistics that would seem to show an direct positive correlation between a region’s religiosity and its crime rate. The other post, Point of Inquiry and the Chris Hedges Interview, contains some remarks, for which I will take the author to task, about non-fundamentalist religious folks. I discovered that blog when one of its posts was listed briefly on WordPress.com’s front page.

First, the statistics about religion and crime:

There are 1332 churches listed in the “SuperPages” for Birmingham, Alabama.

There are 229,424 people in Birmingham, AL according to Wikipedia.

There are 311 churches in listed in the “SuperPages” for Madison, WI.

There are 223,389 people in Madison, WI according to Wikipedia.

Birmingham, Alabama and Madison, Wisconsin are roughly the same size cities according to Wikipedia and yet the difference in number of churches according to SuperPages is roughly 1000! Not a scientific comparison, but a rough one that serves a purpose.

“Breaking Spells” then displays a bar graph showing crime rates in the two cities. The bar graph was obtained from AreaConnect.com: Crime Rate Comparison: Birmingham Vs. Madison.

I would say that both the high crime rate and the large number of churches in Birmingham are most likely a result of poverty. As “Breaking Spells” already acknowledges, poverty is a “demonstrable catalyst for crime.” Poor people also have a greater need, than rich or middle class people, for the kind of community that churches and other religious institutions can provide and which most people cannot easily find elsewhere in today’s world.

So, while the statistics are good prima facie evidence against any notion of religion as a cure-all, they are not strong evidence of the inverse hypothesis, i.e. that religion causes crime.

Note: The “Breaking Spells” blogger did not claim the reverse hypothesis, but used the statistics only to argue against one politician’s idea of preventing crime by distributing Bibles. So I have no argument with “Breaking Spells” on this point. Here, the “Breaking Spells” blogger is arguing only for a general secularist point (government officials should prevent crime by means other than distributing Bibles), with which most religious liberals and moderates would probably agree.

But let’s look now at the “Breaking Spells” blogger’s remarks about non-fundamentalist adherents of religions:

These days, fundamentalists are generally regarded as those cranks and kooks in society that adhere to the literal “truths” of whatever cult they belong to, as told in their scriptures. Ironically, fundamentalists are the truly honest members of their respective religions since liberal or moderate adherents appear to cherry pick what portions of their scriptures are to be taken literal and which are to be considered allegorical, poetic, or the limited perspectives of Bronze Age nomads.

I think liberal and moderate adherents of religious cults know this. It pisses them off since their reason and intellect tells them most of their cult scripture is pure B.S. – otherwise they’d be proponents of stoning adulterers and beheading rape victims. And yet they can’t shake their delusions about old bearded white men in the sky and pretend to be affronted with the “new atheists” that dare to point out their fallacy.

The “Breaking Spells” blogger is like too many other public atheists these days, in that they regard their natural allies as somehow even worse than their natural enemies.

Liberal and moderate religious folks support separation of church and state, as also do public atheists. Liberal and moderate religious folks tend to support women’s rights, gay rights, etc., as also do public atheists. Liberal and moderate religious folks are also far more likely than fundamentalists to support the rights of atheists themselves, too. Thus, it seems to me, it would behoove atheists to regard liberal and moderate religious folks as natural allies even while having strong philosophical disagreements with them.

To any atheist reading this, I ask: Which of the following two hypothetical worlds would you prefer to live in?

1. A world in which 20% of the people are atheists, and everyone else is a hardcore fundamentalist.
2. A world in which only 10% of the people are atheists, but only 20% of the people are fundamentalists, and everyone else is religiously liberal or moderate.

As for the claim that fundamentalists are more “honest”: Why is the belief in an infallibly revealed scripture more “honest” than the belief that one’s God or gods work in more subtle ways? Given the impossibility of proving that a God or gods even exist in the first place, is it more or less rational to believe that one can know that a particular collection of writings is infallibly inspired than to believe that the will of one’s God or gods is a bit harder to discern? Fundamentalism is more simplistic in its epistemology, but that doesn’t make it more honest.

The new atheists dare to question time honored traditions of superstition. The new atheists have the audacity to criticize beliefs of others and to suggest that those beliefs are linked to violence, ignorance, and -let’s face it- stupidity.

There’s nothing wrong with atheists “daring to question time honored traditions.” However, by vilifying (as distinct from just voicing disagreement with) even liberal and moderate religious folks, too many public atheists are displaying, to say the least, a lack of political savvy.

According to a CNN article The rise of the ‘New Atheists’ by Simon Hooper, November 9, 2006:

In fact, the vehemence of their arguments can largely be understood as a frustrated backlash against a religious revival that is still gathering pace, especially in the U.S.

An ICM poll in 2004 found that 91 percent of Americans believed in the supernatural, 74 percent believed in an afterlife and 71 percent said they were willing to die for their beliefs. Research by the University of Minnesota this year also identified atheists as the U.S.’s “most distrusted minority.”

Note: Different polls show different numbers. For some discussion about different polls, see The New Atheists by Ronald Aronson, The Nation, June 7, 2007. But it’s clear that fundamentalism and hardcore religiosity have indeed been very much on the rise these past several decades, especially here in the U.S.A.

Back to the CNN article:

“The reason these books are proving popular is that religion is becoming center stage,” said Keith Porteous Wood, director of the National Secular Society. “In the last five years, in terms of the influence of religion, the gas has been turned up breathtakingly. People are starting to react against this.”

In recent years religious ideas have increasingly impinged on public life in ways unacceptable to New Atheist rationalism, from arguments over the teaching of “intelligent design” in schools to gay marriage and restrictions on embryonic stem cell research.

Meanwhile the hijacking of Islam as an ideological underpinning for al Qaeda terror attacks and suicide bombings has only served to further underpin atheist arguments blaming religion for the world’s ills.

But more bad news for atheists is contained in an article by demographer Eric Kaufman in this month’s Prospect magazine.

Kaufman argues that the world’s religious population is increasing after a century of gradual decline as younger generations in the developing world reject secularization. He also points out that religious people enjoy an unassailable demographic advantage over non-believers by having more children.

Even Western Europe, which contains some of the most secular societies on earth, will be affected by a growing tide of religiosity due to immigration from the Muslim world, predicts Kaufman.

“By the mid-21st century, the peak of secular European politics will be long past,” writes Kaufman. “As in America, politicians will need to stay on the right side of religious sentiment to ensure they are not outflanked by their opponents.”

Ultimately then, the all-out assault waged by Dawkins and his fellow travelers against the forces of superstition and irrationalism may be thwarted as much by birth rates as beliefs.

The rise of hardcore fundamentalism these past several decades poses a serious threat to all of us. Those of us who oppose that trend need to be able to form alliances, which means we need to be able to recognize and get along with each other.

The CNN article goes on to say:

n an interview published in this month’s Wired magazine, Dawkins estimated the number of non-religious people in the U.S. to be around 30 million and compared atheists’ struggle for recognition as equivalent to previous campaigns by other minority groups.

“I think we’re in the same position the gay movement was in a few decades ago,” said Dawkins. “There was a need for people to come out. The more people who came out, the more people who had the courage to come out. I think that’s the case with atheists. They are more numerous than anybody realizes.”

With that, I fully agree.

Some further analogies to the gay rights movement:

1) How did did the gay rights movement make progress? Not by arguing that everyone should become gay, or by vilifying all heterosexuals. It made progress by making alliances. Many gays do feel that gay culture is better than mainstream culture in various ways, and there’s nothing wrong with a person having or expressing such feelings. But, fortunately, such feelings and ideas have never been the main focus of GLBT rights activism.

2) The antipathy of too many public atheists toward religious liberals is somewhat analogous to the antipathy of some gays toward bisexuals. Back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, there was a widespread tendency for gay rights groups to be unwelcoming toward bisexuals. Eventually, bisexual activists won explicit inclusion in what is now known as the “GLBT” or “LGBT” community.

Similarly, in my opinion, atheists and liberal religious folks need to band together as part of a larger secularist movement. I’ve seen the word “secularist” used, inaccurately, by both atheists and religious right wingers, as a synonym for “atheist.” It’s not. A secularist is anyone who wants to keep religion out of law and government.

Some interesting speculation: Does Climate Change Mean More Witch Hunts? by Freakonomics, New York Times Blogs, NY, 4/25/2008:

Times columnist Nick Kristof recently highlighted economic research showing that climate change may be driving up the rate of executions of suspected witches in East Africa.

Tough times in the Congo may have been behind the recent witchcraft panic there, where police arrested 13 people accused of using black magic to shrink men’s penises.

University of Chicago economist Emily Oster also found a surge in witch hunts [PDF] during Europe’s “little ice age,” from the 1500’s to late 1700’s.

Dubner and Levitt also wrote of some other surprising climate results over the ages, ranging from property crime, to life expectancy, to civil war.

What other unexpected consequences, whether economic, social, political, or otherwise, should we expect to see from climate change?

I suppose this is possible. Economic hardship does tend to lead to scapegoating. Here in the West, for example, it has been noted that indicents of racist violence tend to increase during economic recessions.

Meanwhile, still more news of full-blown witchhunts in Africa and India:

• Liberia: Mobs Burned Witch, Wizards’ Homes by J. Nathaniel Daygbor, AllAfrica.com, Washington – April 23, 2008
• Woman branded witch by villagers, set abalze Daily News & Analysis, India – April 24, 2008
• Woman branded witch, beheaded, Hindustan Times, India – April 21, 2008, and Man beheads ‘witch’ to avenge brother’s death, Times of India, India – April 20, 2008

On the other hand, another ongoing problem, in parts of Africa, is “witch doctors” who murder people for their body parts. The latest stories on this have to do with albinos being murdered in Tanzania:

• ‘It must stop forthwith’, Independent Online, South Africa – Apr 3, 2008
• Murderers target albinos in Tanzania, Malaysia Sun, Malaysia – Apr 3, 2008
• State protect albinos’ right, Independent Online, South Africa – Apr 8, 2008
• Tanzania leader appoints albino, afrol News, Norway – Apr 9, 2008

When calling attention to this sort of thing in the West, there’s always a danger of fueling racism. So, perhaps I need to point out that the more educated folks in these countries are taking a stand against these practices.

I came across an interesting post here on WordPress about Halloween, with a lot of annoted info about the ancient Celts, the Druids, Samhain, and the evolution of Halloween festivities. Written from a Christian anti-occultist “ex-witch” perspective, but much more scholarly than most. Among other things, this article points out how little is known, historically, about the religion and customs of the ancient Celts. For example, there’s not enough evidence to know for sure whether the ancient Celts practiced human sacrifice, and it’s not even known for sure whether they had a feast day called Samhain.

However, like a lot of other relatively well-informed writings, this article seems to assume that all Satanists are LaVeyans.

Horrible witchhunt story: Couple burned alive for “black magic”, Reuters, Hyderabad, India, Thu May 3, 2007. Another copy of this story, with a few more details, can be found on the website of Reuters India (Andhra Pradesh couple burnt alive for “black magic”).

More detailed versions of this story can be found on India eNews.com (Couple burnt to death for practicing black magic), on RxPG (Couple burnt to death for practicing black magic), and on the Independent Online site in South Africa (Couple burned alive for ‘witchcraft’).

Even the short version says: “Belief in black magic is common in some parts of rural India, despite the country’s robust economic growth and cutting-edge high-technology industries. Dozens of women are murdered each year after being accused of witchcraft.”

Some of the longer versions add, “In the last decade, about 300 people were killed in the region on the suspicion they were practising black magic. The practice is prevalent in Medak, Nalgonda, Ranga Reddy, Warangal, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Adilabad districts. The actual number of deaths could be higher as many of the ‘bhanamati’ deaths are treated as deaths caused by illness.”

The short version ends with the following, on the separate issue of human sacrifice: “Last year, a barber in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh killed his four-year-old son by slitting his throat with a razor after the man started seeing visions of the Hindu goddess Kali demanding a sacrifice.”

Well, I guess it was only a matter of time before someone would start talking about “Satanism” in connection with school shootings, in the wake of the Virginia Tech murders — even though the killer at VT, Cho Seung-Hui, had no connection with any kind of Satanism, as far as I can tell.

The first such story I ran into isn’t too bad, but still made me cringe.

• “Facts About School Shootings,” Know Gangs (Jared Lewis), April 16, 2007

One paragraph says:

Some shooters had a fascination with gangs, white supremacy groups and Satanism, yet none of them made any active commitment to any of these groups.

Well, at least the writer acknowledges there was no “active commitment.”

Many shooters lacked a strong role model in their own home. They looked elsewhere for their role models and heroes with many of them choosing negative role models. Some idolized Hitler, some adopted Satanism, while other chose various music artists, who often produced music with lyrics that focused on death, suicide and hatred.

For the second time in a row, Satanism and racist extremism are mentioned in the same breath. Alas it does happen to be true that some of the same troubled kids who dabble in Satanism also dabble in neo-Nazism. Still….. (See my collection of articles Against Neo-Nazism Among Satanists.)

Later I ran into the following article:

• “Va. Tech brings back Pearl shootings,” Demopolis Times, Alabama, Tuesday, April 17, 2007

This one is a retrospective story about Luke Woodham, who shot some students at Pearl High School in Mississippi. According to this story:

Police arrested Woodham and six other members of a so-called Satanic cult known as the Kroth. Two of the six members had ties to our college campus, so we made the decision to cover the story. In the end, only three of the six arrested would ever be convicted of crimes associated with the killings. The other four boys would be set free with all charges dropped.

Well, at least this reporter is hip enough to say “so-called.”

In their minds, it seems, they studied Marxism and practiced Satanism.

Well, at least these kids dabbled in Marxism rather than neo-Nazism.

Fortunately, I have not yet seen any claim that Cho himself had any connection with any kind of “Satanism.” If there were any such connection, I’m sure we’d never hear the end of it.

On Tuesday it was revealed that the shooter was a Korean immigrant. At least some Koreans and other Asians are understandably worried about a possible racist backlash. Today I came across the following blog entry by a Korean-American Christian pastor who happens to have the last name of Cho:

• “making sense of the senseless” on Beauty and Depravity

Pastor Eugene Cho reports:

Monday night was an incredibly eerie day for me. After watching the news with incredulity and horror, I posted a blog entry about the tragedy in Virginia Tech. About 9pm [PST], I began to literally have over hundred people instantaneously get to my blog in a span of two hours.

…

As I examined my dashboard through wordpress, it was fairly obvious to me that while the news wouldn’t be shared to the larger world until the next morning, there was strong suspicion – perhaps through authorities or through some of the student body – that the gunman may have been someone named Seung [Hui] Cho. I was speechless, ashamed, angry, and afraid.

I can relate to his fear.

Earlier I read the following blog entry, reporting on some of the ways American youth culture can drive an immigrant kid nuts.

• “Cho Was Like Me,” April 18, 2007, Women’s Space

A 17-year-old Korean immigrant girl named Autumn Lee is quoted as saying:

A boy at my church who is 13 came to the United States about a year or two ago.

…

He gets hated on and punked by the older guys in church because he isn’t used to the way teens joke and ridicule each other in America. He makes smart remarks that piss people off, trying to fit in, but he just seems annoying.

…

I have huge empathy for him because I also get made fun of for being slow and stupid.

However, by no means have all or most school shooters been immigrants, Korean or otherwise.

The MSNBC site has an interesting two-page article, “10 myths about school shootings” by Bill Dedman, Feb 5, 2007:

The profile of the gun-toting student in a trench coat is just one of the myths about the rare but murderous attacks in the nation’s schools.

Here are 10 myths about school shootings, compiled by MSNBC.com from a 2002 study by the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Education. The researchers studied case files and other primary sources for 37 attacks by current or former students, and also interviewed 10 of the perpetrators.

…

The stereotypes of teens in Goth makeup or other types of dress are not useful in preventing attacks.

…

“The demographic, personality, school history, and social characteristics of the attackers varied substantially,” the report said. Attackers were of all races and family situations, with academic achievement ranging from failing to excellent.

…

Myth No. 5. “He was a loner.”

In many cases, students were considered in the mainstream of the student population and were active in sports, school clubs or other activities.

Only one-quarter of the students hung out with a group of students considered to be part of a “fringe group.”

Although there is no useful profile of a school shooter in terms of personal characteristics, is there at least a recognizable pattern of behavior that typically precedes school shootings? Yes, according to another article on the MSNBC site, “Cho’s words, actions fit school shooting pattern: Behavior typically raises concerns long before the shooting starts” by Bill Dedman, April 18, 2007. But even that idea is disputed in yet another article on the MSNBC site, “What Made Him Do It?” by Mary Carmichael, April 17, 2007.

“There’s no one profile of a mass murderer,” says Jana Martin, a licensed psychologist in Long Beach, California. Some kill for revenge, others kill for fame; some give off obvious warning signs while others strike unexpectedly; some go after people they know, and others simply look for the nearest target. Until details about Cho’s life and death begin to filter out, there will be only one trait that ties him to all the others, says Louis Schlesinger, a professor of forensic psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “He is someone who is filled with such hatred that he doesn’t want to kill one specific person. He just wants to kill.”

…

Still, psychologists can say a few things with certainly about who is more likely to commit the most serious of crimes. Over 90 percent of killers are male, and the same holds for mass murderers—“I can’t think of a single case where a woman has done this,” says Schlesinger—partly because men tend to have more access to guns, which are usually the weapons of choice. The killers are usually somewhere between the ages of 25 and 35. They generally do not have previous histories of breaking the law in any serious way, says Levin. And they are not, on the whole, psychopaths, although they are often identified in the media as such. “A psychopath is someone with little conscience, little interpersonal bonding, someone who’s smooth and manipulative,” says Schlesinger. “That personality has nothing, zero, to do with mass murder.”

Indeed, the personality type most often associated with mass murder is in some ways the opposite of a psychopath. He is far from cool-headed; instead, he is aggrieved, hurt, and above all paranoid.

…

Potential killers, especially the young, are highly suggestible.

…

Some mass murderers spend a year or more hatching their plans. In that time, they may leave clues as to their intentions. But these clues are not always easy to see. Many of the warning signs—a near-daily loss of temper, vandalism, increased alcohol and drug use, overreacting to slight setbacks—are characteristic of depression in general. “These are warning signs that a person is in trouble, not that he’s going to kill 30 people,” says Levin. “There are hundreds of thousands of people who have led lives of frustration, who blame others for their problems, and who are socially isolated, but guess what? They never kill anyone.”

And now for a pattern that I’ve noticed, which no one else has talked about, as far as I am aware.

MSNBC’s first major story on the Virginia Tech shootings was “Worst U.S. shooting ever kills 33 on Va. campus.” An earlier version of this story included the following:

Until Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard drove his pickup into a Luby’s Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.

The deadliest previous campus shooting in U.S. history took place in 1966 at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th-floor observation deck of a clock tower and opened fire. He killed 16 people before he was gunned down by police.

In the Columbine High School bloodbath near Littleton, Colo., in 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.

Texas, Colorado, and now Virginia. All these states are home to major religious right wing leaders, I noticed.

The MSNBC site has a page, “Massacre at Virginia Tech,” listing all its stories covering the VT shootings. Among the pages listed are these:

• Fact file: Deadliest shootings in U.S. (Note that the shootings took place in Virginia, Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and California.)
• Fact file: Deadly college shootings in U.S. (The vast majority are in the Bible Belt, I noticed.)

The blog raincoaster says that the worst school massacre in U.S. history was NOT Virginia Tech, but rather Andrew Kehoe’s dynamiting (not shooting) of a school in Bath, Michigan, in 1928. (An account can be found on the Crime Library site.) Rural Michigan too is noted for being very conservative, religiously.

Nearly all the worst mass killings have occurred in the Bible Belt. I can’t help but wonder if that fact is at all significant. The Bible Belt just happens to coincide, to a large degree, with the gun belt; and the availability of guns is probably a more important factor than the Bible Belt’s stifling ultra-religiosity. But might the latter play a role too, in driving people crazy enough to commit mass murder?

A Russian Orthodox public movement called the “People’s Council” has made some ill-informed, panic-stricken claims about Satanism:

• “People’s Council urges authorities to equate Satanists to terrorists,” Interfax-Religion, Russia – Apr 2, 2007

It released a statement claiming that “ritual murders” and various other nasty activities are all “characteristic of Satanic organizations.”

The statement is said to mention several ritual murders including the allegedly notorious “murder of three Optino monks killed by a Satanist on Orthodox Easter.” (I found no further information about this crime via Google.)

The statement also says, “There is an enormous number of Satanic organizations and groups acting in Russia today. Many of them are united in a single branchy network.”

Yeah, right.

The statement then goes on the mention the “Church of the Satan” [sic], failing to note that the Church of Satan has been an above-ground organization for over 40 years and does NOT endorse any kind of criminal activity.

I found the following blog entry:

• “‘Satanists as dangerous as terrorists! World at risk from Satan cults’ claim Russian Orthodox,” Signs of Witness

It closes with the comment, “It could be that Religious Right Hysteria is the real ‘danger to Society…’”

When I first heard about the Virginia Tech shootings yesterday, one of my first thoughts was to wonder what minority groups or nonmainstream subcultures the shooter might have belonged to, if any. If he was anything other than a religiously and culturally mainstream heterosexual white male, would this lead to any scapegoating of whatever groups he did belong to, the way the Columbine killings led to scapegoating of the Goth scene and anyone wearing a trenchcoat?

Among other things, I worried about the possibility that the Virginia Tech shooter might have been gay. Virginia seems to be one of the most homophobic states in the country, with one of the most stringent prohibitions on anything resembling same-sex marriage. Might life in Virginia be bad enough to drive at least one gay man crazy enough to go on a shooting spree? And, if so, might that lead to an even worse situation for gays?

Most of all, I worried about the possibility that the killer might have had an interest in Satanism. Might he even have been a member of one of my own Theistic Satanism forums? I sure hoped not. Yikes!

Some early newsreports mentioned that he “wore black.” Might this result in heightened prejudice against kids who wear black? I’ve heard that, in some parts of the South, any kid who wears black is assumed to be a Satanist, and Satanists are assumed to kill cats and eat babies.

So far, I’ve seen no evidence that the Virginia Tech killer was either gay or interested in Satanism. Today we found out that he was from South Korea. Understandably, Koreans are worried, according to various articles I’ve seen today including the following:

• “Asians fear backlash after campus shooting,” Independent Online, South Africa

Hopefully there will NOT be an anti-Korean or anti-Asian racist backlash. Hopefully there won’t be a backlash against “loners” either. But both, alas, are certainly possible. Time will tell.

What were the killer’s motives? Not known yet. The following article has the latest findings regarding his personality:

• “Gunman’s writings were disturbing,” by Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press, Houston Chronicle, April 17, 2007, 7:17PM