Epidemic of Hatred
posted by Shakespeare's Sister
Friday, August 04, 2006
permalinkContinued again. And
another incident that illustrates the inextricable link between misogyny and homophobia. (Hat tip
429 News.)
Three young men accused of brutalizing an 18-year-old gay man for hours last weekend have been charged with hate crimes, according to police, court documents and a prosecutor.The men also allegedly kidnapped a woman, who was held in a camper and kicked and beaten while the man was repeatedly attacked late Saturday night and early Sunday morning after a house party in Edgewood, according to a search warrant filed Wednesday in state District Court in Santa Fe.
Prosecutor Donna Dagnall, who handles cases in Children's Court, said the 18-year-old man suffered bleeding on the brain and a concussion as well as facial lacerations and bruising, but has since been released from a hospital. Dagnall confirmed the three men allegedly responsible for the beating have been charged under New Mexico's hate-crimes law."It's pretty clear to us that his homosexuality was the reason for the beating," she said.
The two had left the party when their attackers caught up with them, knocked them to the ground, and dragged them to a yard containing dogs. Their attackers threatened to throw them to the dogs, but instead tied them up in a camper and beat and humiliated them all night before finally releasing them.
So, let’s recap:
Poland, Maine—mid-July: Lesbian couple’s home trashed; homophobic slurs left on walls.
Riverside, California—late July: Patrons of gay club attacked.
San Diego, California—late July: Five men attacked leaving Gay Pride.
Detroit, Michigan—late July: A gay man and a transvestite robbed and attacked in separate incidents on one night.
Santa Fe, New Mexico—late July: A gay man and a woman kidnapped and beaten.And those are just the stories I’ve come across in my usual reading, local coverage picked up gay wires or linked by blogs.
Not only have the major media outlets not made any attempt to call attention to this national issue, but they have wholly ignored
** the comments of Renew America’s Deputy National Grassroots Director Guy Adams, who asserted that the gay community is “having sex with animals, a small group that's getting bigger, sex with infants, sex in the street in Chicago out in the open, it's just getting more and more perverted.” Renew America is chaired by
**Alan Keyes, a former Presidential and Senate candidate and former ambassador during the Reagan administration.
There’s been a similar silence regarding Georgia Attorney General Republican candidate Perry McGuire’s
** assertion that school gay-straight alliances should be prohibited because allowing them is "much like allowing a pedophile club or a gambling club to meet at school.” This is the kind of swill being disseminated by movement conservatives, as the LGBT community comes under both legislative and physical attack across the country. Will our media ever pay attention?In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. — Martin Luther King, Jr., "The Trumpet of Conscience", 1967.
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RECAP:
He tried to grab my butt
Posted by
Melissa McEwanat 9:39 AM on August 15, 2006.
So I put him in the hospital
Recently, I
wrote about a story out of Santa Fe in which a woman and a gay man were held hostage and tortured by other people at a party they attended. Well, three men and one woman are being held in connection with the case, and two of the men have been charged with aggravated battery, kidnapping, false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit kidnapping -- and they're already beginning to
mount their defense in the press.
So why did they beat the gay man (and his female friend) until the sun came up, leaving him with "bleeding on the brain, a concussion, facial lacerations and bruising"? Because one of them told the other he
** thought
** the victim tried to "grab his butt."
In an interview, York told state police the comment upset him and made him want to fight the 18-year-old man, the statement says. York said everyone at the party made fun of the 18-year-old man because he was gay, the statement says.
Of course, not everyone at the party made fun of the victim for being gay. I'm sure his female friend didn't, and probably even defended him, which is why she was held against her will and kicked and beaten, too.
York said he wanted to "scare" the victim to "make him straight and to get him to stop acting the way he was," the statement says.
The ignorance is just astounding. Who has failed in their obligation to educate these young men about being gay and what that exactly means? Their quite possibly homophobic parents? Their schools, where, once upon a time not so long ago, health classes taught that homosexuality was not a choice? Their churches? (At least one of the two wore a rosary to court.) The media, who refers to being gay as "a lifestyle," making it seem as if sexual orientation is like choosing between being a ski bunny in Aspen or a beach bum in Boca? Our politicians, who at worst exploit homophobia and at best still can’t muster an unyielding defense of the marginalized LGBT community? Our entire culture? All of the above?
And worse yet, we've failed the victim of these idiots' ignorance and thuggery. Our casual disregard for the inevitable consequences of allowing such bigotry and stupidity to flourish uncontested will be the unnamed co-conspirator on any indictments in this case. And so shall it be, until we treat with all due seriousness the evil of homophobia.
(Crossposted at
Shakespeare's Sister.)
Melissa McEwan writes and edits the blog
Shakespeare's Sister.
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THE DEFENSE:
Gay man beaten to be `scared straight'
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Leroy Segura is allegedly involved in the beating of a gay man and a women in Edgewood, Monday August 14, 2006.
By NATALIE STOREY The New Mexican August 15, 2006
An 18-year-old gay man who was badly beaten in Edgewood on July 30 might have been assaulted because a man at the party believed the gay man had touched his butt, a statement of probable cause filed in state District Court says.
William York, 21, of Edgewood, and Leroy Segura, 19, of Moriarty have been charged with aggravated battery, kidnapping, false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. Bond for each man was set at $100,000 cash only by District Judge Michael Vigil on Monday. Two juveniles, a boy and girl, are also being held in connection to the case.
York believed the victim tried to grab his butt while they were at a party in Edgewood on July 30, the statement says. He said Segura, who is known by the nickname ``Half Pint,'' told him the victim tried to grab York's butt, the statement says. In an interview, York told state police the comment upset him and made him want to fight the 18-year-old man, the statement says. York said everyone at the party made fun of the 18-year-old man because he was gay, the statement says. York said he wanted to ``scare'' the victim to ``make him straight and to get him to stop acting the way he was,'' the statement says.
The juvenile male arrested in the case said he, York and Segura tied the gay man's hands, placed a torn black T-shirt over his head, walked him into a deserted field, pushed him onto a downed fence and beat him, the statement says. The juvenile, the statement says, said he egged on York by calling the gay man joto, a derogatory Spanish word meaning gay. The documents did not contain statements from Segura, who wore a rosary around his neck in court Monday.
The gay man suffered bleeding on the brain, a concussion, facial lacerations and bruising from the beating, which lasted for hours, state police have said. York, Segura and the juvenile male have been charged under New Mexico's hate-crimes law. The 18-year-old victim went to the party with a girl, who was also beaten and held inside the trailer house where the party took place, the statement says. She told police ``the male subjects would knock (the gay man) down and if he did not get up off the ground within a certain count or if he did not make any noise, they would jump on him, hitting and kicking him,'' the statement says. The female victim said the beating stopped as ``the sun was coming up,'' the statement says. The 2003 hate-crimes statute allows an additional year of prison time to be imposed for a felony determined to be a hate crime -- a crime based on the victim's characteristics such as sexual orientation or race. Contact Natalie Storey at 986-3026 or
nstorey@sfnewmexican.com
POSTER: Are you safe yet?
Posted by Jim Hightower
Note: this is a text version of a full-sized poster that is available for download as a PDF.
To request hard copies of the poster, please contact Laura at Hightower's office, via our contact form (select "Copies of poster" from the drop-down menu).
more than 100 civilians killed per day
(The list includes such military powers as Angola, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Latvia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Romania, Solomon Islands, and Uganda.) [WA: many of the weaker nations were coerced into joining by threats to cut off foreign aid, etc.]
(Of these, 32 sent fewer than 1,000 troops. Many sent no fighting units, deploying only engineers, trainers, humanitarian units, and other noncombat personnel.)
(includes veterans' pay and medical costs, interest on the billions Bush has borrowed to pay for his war, etc.)
(An additional 7 have announced plans to withdraw all or part of their contingents this year.)
When signing a particular congressional act into law, a few presidents have occasionally issued a "signing statement" to clarify their understanding of what Congress intended. These have not had the force of law and have been used discreetly in the past.
Very quietly, however, Bush has radically increased both the number and reach of these statements, essentially asserting that the president can arbitrarily decide which laws he will obey.
(This is more than the combined total of all 42 previous presidents.)
These are secret executive writs that the infamous 2001 Patriot Act authorizes the FBI to issue to public libraries, internet firms, banks, and others. Upon receiving an NSL, the institution or firm is required to turn over any private records it holds on you, me, or whomever the agents have chosen to search.
Who authorizes the FBI to issue these secret writs? The FBI itself.
In 2001, Bush issued a secret order for the National Security Agency to begin vacuuming up massive numbers of telephone and internet exchanges by U.S. citizens, illegally seizing this material without any judicial approval or informing Congress, as required by law.
(NSA is tapping into the entire database of long-distance calls and internet messages run through AT&T and probably other companies as well.)
The New York Times reported this June that Bush was running another spy program. This one was snooping through international banking records, including millions of bank transactions done by innocent Americans. George reacted angrily to the exposure, branding the Times report "disgraceful" and declaring that revelation of his spy program "does great harm to the United States." The White House and its right-wing acolytes promptly launched a "Hate-the-Times" political campaign.
Name the guy who was the first to reveal that such a bank-spying program was in the works: George W. Bush! At a September 2001 press conference, he announced that he'd just signed an executive order to monitor all international bank transactions.
From the Bushites' ill-fated Total Information Awareness program (meant to monitor all of our computerized transactions) to the robust efforts by Rumsfeld's Pentagon to barge into the domestic surveillance game, America under Bush has fast become The Watched Society.
(They included such "threats" as peace demonstrators and 10 activists protesting outside Halliburton's headquarters.)
(TSA concedes that it's in the tens of thousands. In 2005 alone, some 30,000 people called TSA to complain that their names were mistakenly on the list.)
In 1966, a young Republican congressman stood against his party's elders to cosponsor the original Freedom of Information Act, valiantly declaring that public records "are public property." He said that FOIA "will make it considerably more difficult for secrecy-minded bureaucrats to decide arbitrarily that the people should be denied access to information on the conduct of government."
Who was that virtuous law maker?
Donald Rumsfeld!
Only eight years later, Gerald Ford's chief of staff strongly urged him to veto the continuation of FOIA. Who was that dastardly staffer?
Donald Rumsfeld!
Who is now one of the chief "secrecy-minded bureaucrats" who routinely violates OIA's principles?
Right, him again!
Plus $365,065 from members of its board of directors (99% to Republicans)
(highest in the corporation's 86-year history
(They include such stamps as CBU - Controlled But Unclassified, SBU - Sensitive But Unclassified, and LOU—Limited Official Use Only.)
(He claims he does not have to report this to anyone—not even the president.)
(a one-third increase over the 2004 backlog)