Assistant DA [oops] AG Andrew Shirvell takes to AC360 to defend his interest in UMichigan student government president Chris Armstrong. Shirvell’s not-at-all obsessive blog.
Shirvell has published blog posts that accuse Armstrong of…sexually seducing and influencing “a previously conservative [male] student” so much so that the student, according to Shirvell, “morphed into a proponent of the radical homosexual agenda;”
Is anyone else reminded of that scene in Rocky Horror where Frank shows up in Brad’s room?
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15 comments
September 29, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Minivet
That’s assistant AG, not assistant DA. Which for the record appears to be a midlevel position not connoting particular power (discovered on the Other Blog), not that that excuses anything.
September 29, 2010 at 8:55 pm
butchrebel
@Minivet:
Actually, Shirvell has tremendous power to influence the trajectory of people’s lives as he daily represents Michigan’s diverse citizens and permanent residents (immigrants) in court *against* a diverse population of accused, that include LGBTQI people. As a criminal prosecuter, the competancy, or lack thereof, he exhibits in his job can, will, and does put people behind bars, many for long, long periods of time.
And let’s not pretend that someone this dogmatic, singularly obsessed, bigoted, driven and downright delusional is capable of exercising anything approximating subjectivity in his post as Assistant Attorney General.
Republican and Attorney General Mike Cox knows what his Assistant AG does when he’s not at work. Cox referred to Shirvell’s behavior as “immature”. Yup, that’s the very shallow, sum total of his comments and concern for the Chris Armstrong’s basic legal rights and personal well being, and that of LGBTQIA folks’, in general.
Cox also knows that he was elected by a significant (overhelmingly heterosexual, cisgendered white) right wing Christian constituency, and he did so with the aid of Shirvell, who worked on his campaign. Question is…why hasn’t he fired this heterosexist loony tunes yet? It’s clear to me that he has no problem with Shirvell’s heterosexist beliefs, and in fact, relied on them to get elected, and relies on them to stay in office.
My close study of U.S. legal history, including recent history (1990s) and present day institutional realities demonstrate that the majority of the defendants that will come before Shirvell are poor people of color, most especially blacks and Latino/a women and men who are accused of drug related crimes. This is largely because of unequal police stops, searches, and arrests of people of color (due to racial profiling) — even though 73% of drug users are white, most drug dealers are white (and tangentially, but still related, contrary to popular assumption, whites are four times more likely to assaulted by a white person than a person of color).
See: Tim Wise’s short essay, “A Quite Deliberate Failure” which draws from Justice Dept stats and a range of academic sources –http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/deliberatefailure.html
Of the population Shirvell will prosecute, those who are LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersexed)folks will be disproportionately people of color, again because of unfair police practices.
It should go without saying that prison is a terrible place that does little to rehabilitate, and more to engender the kind of poverty linked (not causally — but linked) to the top 3 crimes for which prisoners are convicted: possession of an illegal substance, possesion of an illegal substance for sale, and robbery.
(Rape and murder don’t even make the top 10 reasons people are incarcerated).
In short, Shirvell is DANGEROUS — not so much to white middle and upper class people, who comprise the majority of drug users, and a good number of drug dealers, but to poor people of all races, most especially people of color.
Shirvell should be removed from his post as Asst. Attorney General immediately.
@Neddy: I hear you! I watched the interview with Shirvell. If he’s not a closet gay man this but will eat her boxer shorts.
If he’s not mentally unstable as well, I’d be surprised. There’s something really “off” about him — and it’s not just his regrettably repressive Christian fundamentalist politics.
He must have some interesting opinions about the Constitutional amendment separating church and state — I presume he knows about that “little” amendment, and the philosophical conviction of the Constitution’s framers, because he passed the bar exam.
He’s very clearly stalking Armstrong. I hope Shirvell ends up in jail.
September 29, 2010 at 10:53 pm
Patrick
That wingnut is *definitely* gay.
September 30, 2010 at 2:35 am
butchrebel
CORRECTION:
And let’s not pretend that someone this dogmatic, singularly obsessed, bigoted, driven and downright delusional is capable of exercising anything approximating OBJECTIVITY in his post as Assistant Attorney General.
September 30, 2010 at 3:46 am
ajay
morphed into a proponent of the radical homosexual agenda
Transformers 3: Revenge of the Fabulous.
September 30, 2010 at 8:04 am
politicalfootball
That wingnut is *definitely* gay.
Poor guy. I mean, yeah, he’s a horrible human being, but he’s clearly really confused, too.
I thought Cooper did a nice job in the interview, but I wonder if it would have been possible for him to probe this more. I mean, true or not, the inference that Shirvell is gay is pretty much inevitable. Would’ve been interesting if Cooper had really explored the language about conversion that Neddy quotes above. Can you really convert straight people? Are you tempted by this particular sin?
Of course, Cooper doesn’t like to talk about his own sexual orientation, so he might not have been comfortable pushing Shirvell on that subject.
September 30, 2010 at 8:30 am
Minivet
@butchrebel: OK, good point, I was unclear. What I was trying to say was he’s not in any leadership position in the AG’s department. He likely still has power over people’s lives, and he should definitely be fired. (Really, his conduct is such that I wouldn’t trust him to stamp tax forms.)
September 30, 2010 at 8:45 am
butchrebel
@Minivet:
I wouldn’t let him stamp *my* tax form! (And also, very funny:).
I agree that Cooper did well. I was surprised, though, to see Anderson sort of lose his cool the way he did. That seems atypicla for Anderson? And I agree, it would have been useful to probe deeper. I was stunned to learn (maybe I shouldn’t have been) that — in certain spheres — the organized fundamentalist Christian assault on gay rights is carried out by a largely by “reformed” homosexuals. They believe that it is a sin to “practice” homosexuality, even by developing a romantic, solely emotional bond to a person of the same sex. They also believe that God loves them, and that they will be damned to hell if they “practice” homosexuality.
I wonder why Anderson choose *not* to ask Shirvell’s sexual orientation… perhaps he thought it irrevelant to the main issues at hand: Shirvell’s failure to exercise common “deceny,” as Anderson says, by ceasing his cyber bullying of Armstrong, and ending his “movement” to malign Armstrong’s character in order to push him out of his post, and subvert his “radical homosexual agenda.”
(I want a t-shirt that says “agent of the radical homosexual agenda,” by the way — that sounds awesome:) What would the “movement’s” logo look like? :)
It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out…
ANOTHER REVISION: @Neddy:
If he’s not a closet gay man this BUTCH will eat her boxer shorts.
September 30, 2010 at 8:49 am
NM
You’re right, PF, especially since Shirvell seemed on edge even without that question coming up. Would have been interesting to see his reaction.
This kind of reminds me of the latest O’Keefe weirdness, which also involves frustrated and sublimated sexual desire.
September 30, 2010 at 4:34 pm
kathy a.
i don’t think it was necessary for anderson to ask that question, and he took the higher road by not doing so. thought he did a great job, really — reading the definition of cyber-bullying and pointing out instances was excellent.
wow, that guy is a nutjob. and he’s doing criminal prosecutions — geesh. makes my skin crawl. he can definitely mess with people’s lives, badly. for his boss to say he exercized poor judgment outside the office is not just an understatement, but bordering on delusional itself.
funny thing, his blog seems to be invitation-only now.
September 30, 2010 at 5:51 pm
bitchphd
“Is anyone else reminded of that scene in Rocky Horror where Frank shows up in Brad’s room?”
I think *everyone* is reminded of that. Or something along those lines, anyway.
October 1, 2010 at 6:17 am
Susie
Fortunately for Michigan, Shirvell is now taking a
“voluntary leave of absence”.
October 1, 2010 at 7:54 am
David
We can only hope that this becomes a trend:
1) Crazy politician becomes news,
2) Leaves office.
Perhaps it can expand to TV pundits, too.
October 6, 2010 at 6:48 am
rmg
@butchrebel: Let me preface this by saying that I think it’s clear that Shirvell is a fanatic, a homophobe, and clearly mentally unstable if he thinks that stalking a college student is appropriate under any circumstances. He should certainly not continue to serve in any public office.
That said, your soap box about his impact on the poor minority and LGBTQI citizens/residents of Michigan who will “come before him as defendants” and possibly end up behind bars is over the top and misleading.
Do we even know what division of the AG’s office he works in? Most AG divisions–and the Assistant AGs who work in them–do not exist to prosecute criminal cases (that’s what the DA is for). He could work in the tax division, the administrative division, (God help us) the civil rights division, etc.
Now he would have plenty of opportunity to be discriminatory or help screw up people’s lives in any of these capacities. That’s bad enough without pretending that he has the single-handed power to put defenseless, minority Michiganders in prison out of some anti-gay mania.
October 7, 2010 at 6:56 am
Susie
Chris Armstrong talks to Anderson Cooper.