Three Tortured, Raped Just For Being Gay

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Vigil For Society’s Casualties

From Care2
By Jessica Pieklo

In response to the horrific and escalating accounts of assaults and teen suicides all linked to that person’s sexual identity, the “Make It Better Project” has launched a nation-wide initiative aimed at raising awareness and saving lives.  Events have been planned all over the country including for October 11, National Coming Out Day.  Steve Williams has done an amazing job reporting on both inspiring and heartbreaking stories as part of that effort to make sure not another person is abused, intimidated or dehumanized because of their sexuality and I suggest you check out his work if you haven’t had a chance yet to do so.

Because then you’ll hear stories like this and wonder, like I did, how could it get any worse for some folks?

Nine attackers, ranging in age from 16 to 23 and calling themselves the Latin King Goonies kidnapped, beat and sodomized two teenage boys until the boys confessed to having sex with another man.  With those confessions in hand, they lured another man, age 30, to a house with a promise of a party.  Instead of a party  “Goonies” went on to kidnap, beat and sodomize the man for over 10 hours, going so far as to go to his house, attack his brother, and rob him.

All because the man was gay.

The rest of the lurid details of the crime can be found in the reporting by The New York Times, and frankly, it turns my stomach too much to recount them here.  Instead, I urge you to push your legislators for immediate passage of the Student Non-Discrimination Act and the Safe Schools Improvement Act –pieces of legislation designed to get to the heart of the problem of bias-based bullying.

Had the legislation existed by now there’s no saying how many lives could have been saved simply because of a systematic approach at understanding and tolerance.  It used to be we lynched men and women for the color of their skin, and it took an entire movement to push back against that criminality.  Nothing short of the same is needed here because, like the racism of the Jim Crow days, these are campaigns grounded in ignorance and perpetuated by fear and misinformation.

And just like the earlier campaigns of violence and prejudice, this can be defeated.  We can make this stop.  Things can get better.

Related, from Make It Better Project

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