WHAT IF THE GAY BASHERS GOT BASHED????

TAKING AIM AT GAY BASHERS

A gay small business owner is attacked and savagely beaten in Tennessee.  The internet is abuzz with alarm and anger, but...

The truth is there is nothing strange or unusual about such an incident.  I spent about five minutes googling around, five minutes, and promptly came up with the following:

From the CBC:

Police in Vancouver say a 45-year-old Burnaby man has been identified as a person of interest in an alleged attack on a lesbian couple who say they were targeted after being seen sharing a kiss on a transit bus in September.

Ali Matson, 24, and her girlfriend had just gotten off the bus near the intersection of Commercial Drive and Hastings Street when a man allegedly grabbed each of the women and repeatedly punched them in the head.

Matson suffered two black eyes and injuries to her nose, while her girlfriend escaped with minor injuries, before bystanders intervened and the assailant fled the scene.

From PinkNews:

Police have arrested and bailed two men in connection with the fatal assault of a gay man outside a Chester gay bar.

Ronald Hayes, aged 63 from Morpeth in Northumberland suffered serious injuries following an assault near to the Liverpool Arms Bar, in Northgate Street at around 12.50am on Saturday 23 November 2013.

Mr Hayes lived with his male partner on a smart, modern estate at Widdrington Station, near Morpeth.

A murder enquiry has been launched and two men both aged 26 and from nearby Ellesmere Port have been arrested and bailed pending further inquiries.

From Unfinished Lives:

Portland, Oregon – Three gay men dressed in female costumes were savagely attacked in Portland on Hallowe’en, according to KATU News 2, the ABC news affiliate.  The trio say that the assault was motivated by anti-gay bias, since it was proceeded by a flurry of homophobic epithets. Dustin Miller, Joey Malone, and Curtis Hughes, friends who were looking for Hallowe’en fun, took great care in their drag costumes for the evening, one portraying Snow White and another Anna Nicole Smith–but the fun turned violent when a gang of five men started hurling anti-gay slurs at them as they walked along the Portland waterfront.

The Advocate reports that the gay men were beaten, dragged by their hair, and threatened with a knife.  Malone, who lost a tooth in the attack, said one of the assailants slashed at his stomach and his head with a knife, intending to stab him.  ”He swung it at my stomach and then swung it back up at my face,” Malone said.  In a defensive move, Malone kicked off the stiletto heels he was wearing, and used them to back the attackers off.

From Huffington Post:

A gay New Mexico teen says he's been banned from Albuquerque's Coronado Mall for fighting after allegedly being brutally attacked.

The 14-year-old, identified only as Issaic, appears to be violently punched in the back of the head by a 16-year-old in a 20-second cell phone video obtained by KOB Eyewitness News 4.

"He just didn't like me being gay," Issaic, who believes he was targeted partially because of his sexuality, told the news station. He said the teen who allegedly punched him in the head taunted him with anti-gay slurs before the attack: "I'm used to it, but I'm just like, 'Why would you want to fight someone over that?'"

Both Isaaic and the 16-year-old were ordered by Coronado management not to return to the mall for a year, according to KOB's report.

It isn't the first time a shopping mall has been at the epicenter of a gay controversy. Earlier this year, two gay men, Daniel Chesmore and Jose Guzman, were reportedlykicked out of a California mall for kissing and holding hands, even though the center's staff apparently do not prohibit straight couples from showing similar public displays of affection.

“I feel like we’re always treated differently because we’re gay," Guzman said at the time. "It makes me sad.”

From the Seattle Post Intelligencer: 

A man says a group of people heckled him for his sexual orientation, then assaulted him on Capitol Hill early Monday.

The man, whose nose was broken and who also suffered from cuts and abrasions, was taken to Harborview Medical Center.

Officers responded to the incident just after midnight in the 200 block of Summit Avenue East, according to police reports.

The alleged victim, 37, said he was walking east when a group of people — three men and two women — approached him and called him derogatory names.

The man began running, and the group followed him, he reported.

The group caught up with him and assaulted him.

The suspects were last seen headed north on Summit Avenue East. Officers’ check of the area was unsuccessful.

And one more from the CTV News:

Police in Nova Scotia have arrested a 19-year-old man in connection with a Saturday morning stabbing that left a man paralyzed from the waist down.

New Glasgow police say a man has been charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and possession of a weapon dangerous to public peace, in connection with an attack that occurred shortly before 2:30 a.m. on Saturday.

Friends have identified the victim as 27-year-old Scott Jones. They say they believe he was attacked because he is gay.

Amy Punke, Jones’ roommate, said the fear of being targeted because of his sexual orientation was something they had discussed.

"Things that he lives with and what many people live with when they live in fear of not being accepted," Punke, who has known Jones for years, told CTV News on Sunday.
"I’m still in disbelief and sad that things like this still happen."

She said Jones and a group of friends were out celebrating a gallery opening in downtown New Glasgow, when he was stabbed two blocks from a church.

"Two men approached Scott and his friend," Punke said. "One of the men distracted Scott's friend and the other man came up behind Scott and stabbed him in the back twice and then tried to slit his throat."

Jones, a well-known church organist and choir director at First Presbyterian Church in New Glasgow, is paralyzed from the waist down and is not expected to walk again, preliminary medical reports say.

Get the picture?  The brutal beating of a gay man in Tennessee is horrible news, but it almost isn't even really news.

As a Jew I feel I can ask, "If these people were Jews and being attacked because they were Jews by Jew hating bastards, you think the media reports might not just remain local news stories 'live at ten.'"  You think the national media would be talking about a wave of anti-semetic violence.  Hell yes, they would.  

But these people are just, merely, only, gays and lesbians, so, you know, what's new and what's news.

It is time, my friends, for all of us to act not on just this and that incident (though act on them we should), no, it is time we take on the homophobic violence straight (and I use the word purposely) on and damn hard.  Gay bashing is not a gay problem.  Gay bashing is a straight problem.  It's fine and dandy that the more progressive straight world condemns such things, laments them, and all that.  However, it is NOT enough.

I am re-reading this book about the concept of race traitors and abolition...about whites who discard their white privileges, at least for a while, and who suddenly aren't white anymore...and about what it would mean if enough whites did that so that the pigs wouldn't know really who was white anymore, so that the entire social construct "white" would explode.  It led me to wonder, in a similar vein, what if, hypothetically speaking of course, what if across the land groups of straight folks decided to try to pass themselves off  as gay, say a couple of guys walking down the street hand in hand, for example?  What if one or two of these "sexual orientation traitors" were to parade down the street at night?  What if our straight "gays" had rolls of quarters in their fists?  What if hidden nearby were a pack of their friends?  What if when one of these gay bashing jerks started hurling slurs or started to  attack our fake gays, and,  what  if those friends of those pseudo gays (the guys with the rolls of quarters in their fists) leaped out of the shadows and they all beat the crap out of the bashers?  What if this started happening all over?  What would the gay bashers do then, when they just weren't sure who was gay and who wasn't, who was a decoy and who wasn't...

When is doing the unreasonable reasonable?

Hmmm...an interesting question.

Here is an interesting story from GayStarNews:

Retired super heroes patrolling NYC Village to stop gay bashers

A group of anti-crime activists and volunteer emergency responders who once used super hero personas has been patrolling Greenwich Village after a spate of savage gay hate attacks

 BY ANDREW POTTS

Photo by the New York Initiative

A group of anti-crime activists and volunteer emergency responders who once used super hero personas to get their message across has been patrolling Greenwich Village to combat homophobic violence following a spate of anti-gay attacks in New York.

Founded in 2009, the New York Initiative is nine people with a range of security, martial arts and first aid training who today describe themselves as, ‘individuals organized towards achieving peacekeeping objectives and humanitarian missions.’

‘Our primary goal will always be to help those in the most need to the highest ethical standard and to the maximum effect,’ the group says.

The New York Initiative originally adopted super hero personas to draw media attention to crime issues in New York but have since taken off their masks.

In the years since the organization has expanded to include seven branches in seven US cities and the group recently founded a branch in London for the United Kingdom.

The New York Initiative usually patrols Brooklin and Harlem but has been patrolling Greenwich Village following the murder of gay New Yorker Mark Carson and other attacks in the city.

Zero, one of the group’s founding members, said Initiative members were not vigilantes and only ever used reasonable force in stopping illegal violence.

‘If you're going into a situation and someone is using serious force like punching somebody, you can only use the same amount of force to stop them,’ Zero, who by day is a security professional, told GSN.

However he said the group would always try to de-escalate a situation before resorting to that.

‘We are peaceful warriors,’ Zero said.

Initiative member Dark Guardian, a professional martial arts instructor, said the group was particularly concerned when people were singled out for who they are.

‘Violence on its own is wrong, and it’s even worse when a specific group is being targeted,’ Dark Guardian said.

‘We care about everyone, from every walk of life, and we want to keep everybody safe. Our focus now is the Village.’

In response to recent homophobic crimes in New York City the group will be offering a free self-defense seminar for LGBT people in Tompkins Square on 7 July at 4pm.

‘Come spend the day with us as we learn defense techniques, discuss awareness and talk about strengthening our communities against senseless crime and violence,’ the group said in a statement.

The New York Initiative has asked that people who plan to attend RSVP to NYInitiative@Gmail.com or by the event’s Facebook page.

If it is raining on the day the seminar will be pushed back to 14 July at the same time.

The group has also published a street safety guide online.

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NOTE: A little about the New York Initiative from their facebook page:

About

The NYI is a proactive team of citizens with various skills and training working to empower and protect New Yorkers.

Mission

The Initiative Corps is an organization that rights wrongs. Any time, any place, and for any one... If you're being oppressed, silenced, abused or attacked, we will be there. We will protect those that need it, and teach them to protect themselves.

We can't be everywhere at once... But EVERYONE can.

TRUST YOURSELF.

Company Overview

Objectives

* Crime Patrol
* Self-Defense Seminars for at-risk areas
* Violent Offender Sting (bait patrol)
* Secret Event Security
* Overt Public Security
* Humanitarian Outreach
* Urban Exploration
* Empowerment and Awareness Outreach
* Area-Specific Operations
* Law Enforcement Support
* Environmental Outreach
* Creative Applications
* Disaster Relief
* Emergency Response

General Information

If you would like to apply for membership or an Initiative Corps branch, please join https://www.facebook.com/groups/WorldwideInitiative/ to get to know us first. For membership guidelines please email us at NYInitiative@gmail.com

The Initiative Corps is no longer affiliated with the Initiative Collective, i.e. The CAI, CAI:LA, or WAI.