Talk:Oliver Sipple

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Could somebody please explain this passage? [Herb Caen reflecting in a 1995 column about the acceptance of gay visitors to the White House during the Clinton administration remembered "A true hero, Sipple was invited to the White House. The invitation was withdrawn when it was learned that Sipple was gay, so it could be said a little progress has been made."] This explicitly makes it sound as if the "Clinton administration" first invited and then rejected Oliver Sipple due to his sexual orientation. This does not seem possible, as Sipple died in March 1989, long before Clinton entered the White House. Is this an unintentionally ambiguous reference to a previous administration rescinding their invitation, or a very poorly thought-out attempt to portray the Clinton White House as anti-gay? I'm tempted to remove the whole section, as I do not have the correct information so as to rewrite it in a non-confusing way. --dhs Addendum: Version history explains everything. Someone simply altered the text, removing reference of the Ford administration and apparently adding quotation marks to make it seem a direct quote of Herb Caen. I'm simply axing the section, as it offers no citations, and seems to foster *two* unfounded claims (against Presidents Clinton and Ford.) Feel free to cite properly and re-insert. --dhs

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The clean cut looking Oliver Sipple did not save President Ford's life. Sipple grabbed the arm of the real person who grabbed the gun and deflected the shot away from Ford, Carl "Charles" Gundlach. Mr. Gundlach had long curly hair and a beard. Because of his appearance, he was led away from the scene by security personnel who held him and questioned him for hours before releasing him. Though there is news photography showing Mr. Gundlach saving President Ford, neither the President or the U. S. Government have acknowledged their mistake in honoring a fake hero - Oliver Sipple.

  Could you provide a citation for Mr. Gundlach's role in preventing a second shot from being fired at President Ford? T.E. Goodwin 21:01, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Would you be kind enough to link us to said news photography? Rhymeless 22:13, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

And would you really call the way they treated Sipple "honoring"? -- Imladros 04:22, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the government did what it could with Sipple. The media did not make a big deal about him though.

This is the most sad thing I've ever heard. ---bamonster

[edit] Quotations moved from article

I've cut these quotations from the article, as they were set off in the lead paragraph by themselves. If someone wants to contextualize and cite them, by all means put them back in.

• "I want you to know how much I appreciated your selfless actions last Monday. The events were a shock to us all, but you acted quickly and without fear for your own safety. By doing so, you helped to avert danger to me and to others in the crowd. You have my heartfelt appreciation." -- President Gerald Ford/September 25, 1975

• "My sexual orientation has nothing at all to do with saving the President's life, just as the color of my eyes or my race has nothing to do with what happened in front of the St. Francis Hotel." -- Oliver "Billy" Sipple

--A Train ^{take the} 19:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Outing"

I'm a bit confused by this section. The headline says the "media" outed Sipple, but the text says gay rights' groups outed Sipple. Are these two separate issues?--Idols of Mud 20:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the media covered the outing by the gay community, hence participating in the outing.

But unless some newspaper published "EXCLUSIVE:OLIVER SIPPLE IS GAY," they can't be accused of outing him. Sipple was a public figure, as was Harvey Milk. If Milk announced his homosexuality against Sipple's wishes, the media has a duty to cover that. I don't think they can be accused of outing him.--Idols of Mud 03:30, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Please remember that outing is not a monolithic, unitary act. One can be "out" to different sets of people. Being outed to the gay community as a whole (by the enthusiastic embracing of Sipple as a hero) is a different scope than being outed to the general public by a daily newspaper (e.g., Herb Caen in the Chronicle.). So in a sense, both prominent gay public figures and the media outed Sipple. The present wording of the article seems to indicate that adequately. --MCB 06:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree -- as it reads now, the article says Sipple didn't want to be outed to anyone, which makes the gay community as complicit in his outing as the media, if not more so. The headline, however, reads "'Outing' by the media." If Sipple chose to be out to some people but not others, that ought to be reflected in the article. If Sipple was outed by gay leaders, that should be made clear. In reading this article, I'm not entirely certain what Sipple's attiude was toward his homosexuality -- one gets the sense he was in the closet, even if that wasn't true. It seems unfair to "blame" the media for reporting on Sipple being embraced as a hero by the gay community, especially when leaders like Milk were doing so.--Idols of Mud 13:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)