My Real Time with Brigitte Gabriel

by Charles Winecoff

It seems obvious to me that national security is an everybody issue. And apparently, all kinds of people sign up for Act For America’s training seminars – Christians, Jews Hindus Atheists, lesbians, gays, people of all colors and creeds – not just trailer park stereotypes that the ill-informed automatically presume. Brigitte Gabriel is unabashedly gay friendly, feminist friendly, progress friendly, and more socially liberal friendly than her detractors would ever dare to admit – because, as she says herself, “that’s what Western civilization is all about.”

It’s not about calling women second class citizens and feeling supreme above all others. We’ve had enough trouble fighting supremacist movements here in the US already – and now we have a black President to prove the battle is almost over. So why are the Chris Roddas out there trying to malign and marginalize someone who is fighting to prevent another supremacist group – radical Islamists – from asserting their macho supremacy anew?

Last December, some well-intended holiday gift donations to ActforAmerica.org, the grassroots group that empowers citizens to fight the cultural jihad here at home, changed my life.  They triggered a coming out letter to my family and friends – that became my public coming out on Big Hollywood as a recovering knee-jerk spawn of the boob tube who learned, thanks to 9/11, to stop hating America.

If writing that piece was hard, publishing it on BH was even harder.  I had no idea what to expect.  And while I still got the silent treatment from more of my “liberal” friends than I would have liked, the comments from the diverse readers of BH were overwhelmingly supportive, and very touching.

The biggest thrill, however, was getting an enthusiastic comment from ActforAmerica.org’s founder, Brigitte Gabriel – who invited me to get in touch with her.  Not only had I read both of Ms. Gabriel’s books, Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America and They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It, but I had long enjoyed her TV appearances on Fox News, MSNBC, etc.  I admired her outspokenness and was definitely a fan.

So I left a message for Ms. Gabriel at ActforAmerica.org, and she promptly called me back.  We agreed to meet in about a month when she would be in town.  She could not have been nicer on the phone.  I was on cloud nine.

But in the ensuing weeks, a lifetime of brainwashing by Katie Couric reared its ugly head.  Who was Brigitte Gabriel anyway?  Sure, I’d read about her horrendous, violent childhood in war-torn Lebanon, spent in a bomb shelter, under siege by radical Islamic militants.  Why did she want to meet me?

I turned to YouTube to remind myself why I was drawn to her.  Brigitte Gabriel wasn’t boring.  She could rattle off terrorist attacks, names, dates, and Arabic countries like nobodies business.  She had great hair.  She was fiery, passionate.  Sometimes she almost seemed to be playing with her fellow TV guests / opponents, like a cat swatting at its prey.  She almost always ended her segments with a winning smile.

But one thing concerned me: several of the YouTube clips showed her speaking live before very large church groups – for instance, in one video she addressed an audience at something called the “Prophecy Conference.”  Hmmm.  In another clip, she was interviewed on a little-known Christian talk show titled Inspiration Today.

Being a gay guy from New York City, naturally my back went up.  Though I’ve personally not had any unpleasant encounters with folks who identify as Christian - in fact, these days I’m glad they’re out there – old habits die hard.  After all, I was raised by a TV set.

So I wondered: was Brigitte Gabriel a born-again evangelical nut?  If so, perhaps I was going a little too far with my fresh out-of-the-conservative-closet, kid-in-a-candy-store enthusiasm.

I decided to turn it over to a power greater than myself (like God).

Then, about a week before we were set to meet, I was watching the season premiere of Real Time with Bill Maher (old habits really do die hard) when who should turn up as his via-satellite guest to talk about the recent beheading in upstate New York (that The New York Times failed to report on for an entire week) but my favorite freedom fighter, Brigitte Gabriel.  Here’s the clip:


I was proud of my girl.  She did good.  She didn’t come across angry or humorless (unlike certain other self-important celebrities we know) - no, she demonstrated real show biz savvy by taking her cue from Maher himself and going with the comedy flow.  Yet she still managed to make her points.

And she looked fabulous.

But no sooner had Gabriel proved herself the next best thing to Eva Longoria Parker, than radical Islam’s allies were out for blood.  Three days later, Chris Rodda of something called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation – and author of the obviously bipartisan and tolerant Liars for Jesus: the Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History – came out swinging on The Huffington Post.

Rodda described Gabriel as “a woman who very few of Maher’s viewers had probably ever heard of before” - uh, guess again, honey - then proclaimed, “I, on the other hand, knew exactly who she was.’  She went on to label Gabriel a “Christian supremacist.”

Apparently, Rodda was behind yet another leftwing blacklist, this one designed “to put a stop to the speaking appearances and lectures by radical Islamophobes at our military colleges and service academies… we had just been informed that our hard-fought battle was paying off, and Gabriel’s name had been struck from a list of potential speakers at one of our military’s educational institutions.”  Nice.

Rodda continued: “While Maher was just exploiting the irony of the story, Brigitte Gabriel was given a forum to further her fear-mongering cause… With her glee in proclaiming on Real Time that Muzzammil Hassan had called the police to ‘brag’ that he had murdered his wife… Gabriel came across to the audience as a funny, personable guest.  To those of us familiar with Gabriel, however, her glee was taken as something quite different.”

Really?  I was under the distinct impression she was just taking her cue from Rodda’s hero, Mr. Anti-Religion himself, Bill Maher.

Rodda ended her screed to Maher – one of the only people in the MSM who dared to bring up the un-politically correct, tragic beheading at all – with a plea that he publicly discredit Ms. Gabriel:  “Bill, you want some real religious insanity to have some fun with?  Make Brigitte Gabriel your target, not your guest.”

Better yet, BIll: invite Chris Rodda to face off with Brigitte Gabriel – and see who wins.  (The big irony, of course, is that while Rodda works surreptitiously behind the scenes to marginalize and destroy a woman who is essentially a fellow feminist, Gabriel is fighting on the front lines to protect people like Rodda from oppression and even death.)

Three days later, my partner (i.e. the man I live in sin with) and I met the Christian crusader in person for coffee.  Since she often has to travel incognito – death threats, you know (I wonder how many of those Rodda gets) - I imagined she might be disguised in a frumpy housecoat, or even a hijab.

Not a chance.  When Brigitte Gabriel finally walked in, three words immediately went through my mind: va, va, and voom.  Dressed in a form-fitting white jumpsuit, a silky leopard pattern shawl, and sunglasses, Gabriel looked every inch a Hollywood star.  (Hey, when in Rome…)  This was a woman who was clearly proud of her assets, and not about to hide them, Prophet Muhammad be damned.  Even I had to admit she was smokin’.

And she has a personality to match: warm, direct, almost ridiculously exuberant.  As she put it herself, she is “high on life” – a cliche, I know, but in her case I believe it.  Unlike the glamor pusses of Tinsel Town, Gabriel has actually experienced the dark side of human nature up close and personal – and lived to tell the tale.  Why shouldn’t she be ecstatic?

And tell her tale she does.  Gabriel matter-of-factly compares the shrapnel scars on her arm to the Nazi ID numbers tattooed on the arms of Jews – a disarming reminder, especially coming from such a sexy, vivacious, and sanguine lady.

That said, we had a lovely time chatting about our families, sharing personal stories – and let me be the first to tell Chris Rodda: there is nothing bitter or bigoted about this woman.  You would be hard-pressed to find anyone with as much optimism as Brigitte Gabriel.  She’s got positive vibes to spare.

As for the question of her being a Christian supremacist?  Not.  She’s as Christian as I am – that’s our liberal heritage in the truest, most fundamental, humanitarian sense.  She gushed over my partner, and they hit it off like old friends (and BTW, he’s a staunch Obama supporter and recovering Catholic).

Gabriel speaks from a wholly secular viewpoint.  She does not quote scripture – nor does she Bible bash.  She is simply freedom friendly.  Coming from the Middle East, she knows we’ve got a good thing going here freedom-wise – because she saw her native Lebanon lose it, and she doesn’t take it for granted the way far too many of us, who were born here, do.

That’s why she has made it her mission to make sure the kind of radical Islamic takeover that turned her homeland into a near Islamic state doesn’t happen here.  At least, as she told us, “not on my watch.”  This gay man is happy to join her in that crusade.

Okay, so I’m a little biased.  Meeting Brigitte Gabriel confirmed my suspicion that the truth about people is much more complex, and much more hopeful, than the talking heads on television (and Ms. Rodda included) want us to believe.  We are not all red or blue.  We are not all anything.  What we are is a lot more diverse than we’re given credit for.

But there’s always been power in keeping people in the dark, and defining those we don’t like through the eyes of our own presumptions.  Note to Rodda: I would suggest you do coffee with Gabriel before meeting her face-to-face on Maher’s show.

So watch out for this dynamo of a little lady, Hollywood.  You’ll be seeing more and more of her in the near future.

And thank you again, Andrew Breitbart, for encouraging me come out this second time.  If you hadn’t, I might never have had the chance to meet one of my heroes.  It almost feels like being in love.


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Posted Mar 2nd 2009 at 11:20 am in Uncategorized | 46 Comments