It’s time for an afternoon game, everybody! Which one of these things is the DIFFERENT one?
1. A couple of weeks ago, a gay couple was walking hand in hand in Portland when they were assaulted by several men for being gay. Even in Portland.
2. A ring of assailants tortured three men in the Bronx last fall, simply for being gay. They “sodomized, burned and whipped” them, according to the New York Times. City council member Christine Quinn said it was one of the worst hate crimes she had ever encountered.
3. In 2009, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, aged 11, hung himself after being bullied for being gay. In September of 2010 at least nine young people took their lives due to bullying over their actual or perceived sexuality.
4. In 1999, Matthew Shepard was beaten, brutalized, hung on a fence and left to die over his sexuality. [Yes, according to all reasonable authorities, it was because of his sexuality. There is no debate on this.] The brutality of the attack captivated the nation and was perhaps the first anti-gay hate crime to receive such attention. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the last, as there are lists upon lists of LGBT people around the world being beaten, maimed and killed simply for who they are.
5. Peter LaBarbera is bitching because a gay person took a big piece of paper from a gay-hating wingnut and TORE IT UP! That was the wingnut’s big piece of paper! He wrote the big, stupid, hard words on it all by his-self! HATE CRIME!
