Talk:Oliver Sipple

"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)

In digging through this Sipple, in a way, outed himself by participating in the Imperial Court System, gay parades and gay rights demos. Milk was in the midst of his campaign and either directly or through one of many folks who fed items to columnist Herb Caen hoped that he would be honored as a gay hero. all three are now dead so we might not ever know. Benjiboi 15:41, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

But had NOT outed himself to his family. There's a difference. 137.188.108.55 (talk) 05:05, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Saving Ford's life, etc.

   Being "known for" that suggests too strongly that he did save it, which (tho a rare thing to approach as close to certainty as he did) is utterly unverifiable: who can say that she was skilled enuf to aim accurately, let alone avoid spoiling the aim in pulling the trigger? Did she understand the difference between trajectories that guarantee a kill and don't, and was she able to deduce how they depend on the orientation of the target's body to the trajectory? Was she trying for a kill, a survivable wound, or a near miss?
    Similarly, how could "Reacting instinctively" be confirmable, or rather, how could whatever the editor intended to say -- in claiming that a behavior dependent on recognizing that an object is a firearm could fall under

Instincts are the inherent inclination of a living organism toward a particular behavior. The fixed action patterns are unlearned and inherited.

-- be verifiable? It is possible to act without a conscious decision to do so, but reporting that one has done so is not verification; as with the unseen gorilla who threads his way thru the basketball players, the focus required to act that quickly is more likely to produce reports that reflect emotionally fraught attempts to reason out what one's own state of mind must have been, than accurate recollections. Such issues probably infect even those whose current mix of training and real combat puts them at their point of optimum introspection, but his nearly 7 years since either combat or training, and whatever psychological issues he had, make him (with all due respect to what must be called his heroic intervention) far from any presumption of accurately reporting how and why he acted.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jerzy (talk • contribs) 07:28, 18 January 2011
Letter from President Ford thanking Oliver Sipple for saving his life. http://www.lgbtqveteransmemorial.com/ford.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:243:815:717:543F:2400:5F52:2949 (talk) 17:37, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Oliver Sipple

You are saying that Oliver Sipple grabbed

SARAH JANE Moores  shoulder, arm, etc and saved the President. 
That is a complete  fabrication. Sipple was onthe same side of the street as POTUS. He received  the bullet in his groin area fom the ricochet  off the wall of the St Francis  hotel. You can argue with  me but I  was on the same side of the street  as Moore.  Bullet went between  me and a SFO police officer. I still remember quite well. 2600:8800:171A:E100:DD5F:33E4:D6C2:94C6 (talk) 22:38, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

then update it 137.188.108.55 (talk) 05:06, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Hypocritical

This guy didn't want to world to know he was gay yet this entire article is about the fact he was gay. Hypocritical much? 2001:1C00:7388:8000:9B9C:6E3E:4BBF:ECAB (talk) 00:23, 26 April 2025 (UTC)