GEN543 Spreading false, negative comments about people—that is, slandering them—clearly attacks their integrity and reputation, and that is, as Maimonides says, akin to murder. But even slurs—that is, true but negative comments about someone (lashon hara) – can be nothing less than lethal. Oliver Sipple is a woeful case of this. Sipple, an ex-Marine who saved the life of President Gerald Ford by deflecting the gun directed at him by Sarah Jane Moore, became an instant national hero. Despite his request to reporters, “Don’t publish anything about me,” many noted in their articles that Sipple was active in the gay community. This led to rejection by his parents, who had not known about that aspect of his life—even to the point of his father telling him that he was not welcome at the funeral of his mother—which, in turn, led Sipple to drink heavily and to die alone at age forty-seven. The reporter who first publicized Sipple’s homosexuality made this postmortem comment: “If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t.” Stephen Bates, If No News, Send Rumors: Anecdotes of American Journalism (New York: Henry Holt, 1989), pp. 143-43). Note that this case illustrates that what constitutes negative information depends largely on how the hearers will respond to it.  After all, being gay is not in and of itself a bad thing; for many people now, it is simply a fact of life, like the fact that some people have blue eyes and some have brown eyes. Sipple knew, though, that his parents would think ill of him if they found out that he was gay, and that was all that mattered. The prohibition of uttering negative speech applies all the more if everyone knows that what a person is saying is negative, for then there is a clear intention to defame a person.  We may not defame a person, for we are required to respect each and every person as being created in the image of God [this verse]. DORFFWITO 81-2