Married Lesbian Couple Rescued 40 Teens from Norway Massacre

If, as I insisted, you'd read Tove Jansson's elliptical, elegant Fair Play or her marvelous The Summer Book, you could perfectly envision the Norwegian island chain where married lesbians Hege Dalen and Toril Hansen [adidas] were eating at their campsite when they heard shots and screams across the water. Did they run and hide? No, they're lesbians, so they jumped in their boat and sped toward the slaughter. The women pulled terrified teens from the water and the rocky coast as the insane far-right gunman shot through their vessel. Unfortunately, there were too many youth to fit in the boat. Hege and Toril ferried the group to safety, then hurried back to the massacre, rescuing another boatload. Then they did it yet again. And still again. Altogether in their four trips they saved forty people from the scene where seventy-six died.

The mainstream U.S. media, which loves a hero story almost as much as a tragedy, has been uniformly silent about the lesbian superstars. Instead, you get a gay man, Bruce Bawer, in his self-serving WSJ piece saying how shocked he is to discover his extremist anti-Islam writings are quoted in the extremist anti-Islam writings of a killer. Ignore him and stick with Tove Jansson.

photo: Maija Tammi/HS

Comments

[Penny]

How had I not heard of your bravery. You are two wonderful people and I wish you every happiness.

[Mitch]

Thank you for making this known. Brave girls. True heroes.

[Tamara]

Wonderful!!!!!!

[Carole Covello]

Bravo. Short but comes from my heart

[Kristi]

Wow, that must have been beyond terrifying, yet they kept going back. What courage!

[Cameron]

You are so brave and thank god that you were there to save those teens I am sure they are very glad that you were their to save there lives.

[David Lenander]

I did read Tove Jansson's _The Summer Book_, which is lovely, and all of her Moomin books (except, perhaps, for some of the cartoon collections that I may never have seen), and I'm happy if they somehow inspired this heroic rescue. I know that she somehow felt that her lesbianism might be communicated in her children's books, so she stopped writing them, which always seemed odd to me. But if that's part of the heroism in Hege Dalen and Toril Hansen, I'm glad of it. Otherwise, I don't see the connection. But thanks to God or Jansson, or Mother Earth or whomever or whatever for those rescues. Mostly, thanks to Ms. Dalen and Ms. Hansen. If you're saying that this story has been suppressed because of their lesbian marriage--I don't know on what basis, I'm sorry for that and will share the story farther. I'll look for _Fair Play_.

[myna lee johnstone]

they need recognition for both

[Andi Parker]

Sexuality is not the issue - such amazing women. I'd like to think that anyone in that situation would have done the same.

[Layla]

On the one hand, yes, it's kind of awful that the media may or may not be excluding their act of heroism on the grounds that they are lesbians.

On the other, the fact that they're lesbians really need not be played up at all. They're just two very brave women who happen to also be married.

[GrowFromHereNZ]

From A Kiwi lesbian who hosted a Norwegian teen through AFS - thank you

[Star]

While FOX News probably wouldn't have touched it to begin with, other media outlets here in the States almost NEVER cover international incidents for very long at all and usually not very *well*, in my experience. That's part of why when my cable company decided to broadcast NHK (Japanese news) for free for news programs after the earthquake in March I was so relieved; we would never know anything in my household otherwise unless we went looking, and there's not always time in the day to do that. American media just can't stand not to let America be the self-absorbed country that it often is, anymore.

So it has less, probably, to do with their orientation in most networks' minds, than it does with where it happened. If it doesn't directly affect Americans, media assumes nobody will actually care and doesn't "waste" the airtime. Sad.

[Grace Scrimgeour]

Heroism is often linked with masculinity, particularly straight masculinity. While I'm sure it's true that these women did what they did because they are brave and good people, not married lesbians, mentioning their gender and sexuality reminds us that not all heroes are big, butch, straight men, and that they don't own heroism.

[Tara]

True, the fact that they are lesbians has nothing to do with their undisputed heroism. However, sadly, it has everything to do with why they have not been mentioned in US media. The great land of diversity has such a long way to go. These women are truly amazing!

[Barbarienne]

Quite true. If they had been a hetero couple, I suspect the USA media would have been all over it. There would be three cable stations bidding right now to make a movie of the week of their story.

[Sous Chef]

God bless them both.

[mikelasley@hotmail.com]

Heroes.
The truer nature of humans shines.

[Adrian]

Agree with @scarlettwith2ts - what does the sexuality of any rescuer, or non rescuer, have to do with anything? Did they only save chicks or something?

[Kat McBeath]

Wow! This gives me hope for the human race. And to think there's any controversy at all about whether lesbians and gays should be able to adopt and raise children.

[Adrian]

The heterosexual rescuers aren't exactly being deified either. I think the lesbian angle to this post is irrelevant.

[Brett]

So brave, so very brave...if only more couples were like these two. Simply not good enough that more people haven't heard this story; I'll be passing this link on to all I know :)

[Scott Free]

It's sad that people are complaining more about the tongue-in-cheek use of the phrase "no, they're lesbians" in this article than there are people complaining about the lack of coverage of this story by the mainstream media.

[Heather]

wow, I'm so proud of these two women. And as others have said, what goes on in their bedroom is of absolutely no consequence. Kudos for their bravery should be shouted from the rooftops!!
Hurrah for these two fabulous women! I nominate them for a medal, at the very least.

[John]

What does their being lesbian have to do with it?

[Bard C. Papegaaij]

Maybe the author needs to spell it out a bit more, since so many people seem to read this the wrong way, but the way I read this is not that her/his argument is that these women are heroes because they are lesbians (I think that bit was an attempt at irony), but that these women are uncelebrated heroes because they are gay. If they had been straight or single or just good friends the international press would have been all over them, but because they are a married lesbian couple the Political Correctness Clan carefully avoids to mention them. That is the issue. And it is sad, very sad.
I wonder how the Norwegian press is treating them, by the way. Do they shy away from this as well?