Outside Club Majestic, a gay bar in Tulsa’s Brady district, a 25-year-old name Jerrid says two men attacked he and a friend Sunday because they’re gay. “We asked them if they were going to beat us up because they looked they were, they said no we’re just looking for an after party.” They weren’t. Instead, the two men punched Jerrid and his friend; Jerrid was knocked unconscious. The attack comes a year after Brandon Patrick was attacked by three people in a knifing-and-biting assault and seven months after Phillip Nelson was robbed and attacked because, he believes, of his sexual orientation. [Fox 23]
gay bashing
2 Tulsa Men Attacked Outside Gay Bar For Being Homosexuals. Not That Oklahoma Has A Law Against That
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Jim Hlavac
There are plenty of laws in Oklahoma that make it a crime to beat up one’s fellow citizens. It doesn’t make a difference whom the fellow citizens are. We are Americans, and humans, and fellow citizens. No one, straight or gay, should be beaten up anywhere by complete and utter strangers. But like I said, there are plenty of laws on the books already that criminalize such brutish behavior. They should be applied.
What we gay folks should concentrate on is attacking the defenses used — homosexual panic, or twinkies (that’s history, Dan White, Harvey Milk, look it up,) or whatever. We must convince straight people not that we should not be beaten up because we are gay — but that we should not be beaten up because we are fellow citizens.
The crime is not beating up gay people — it is beating up fellow citizens. And there are laws to use against the charged. For the sake of equality we cannot ask for a law that says you can’t beat up gay folks — for that implies that it’s OK to beat up straight folks of any flavor, or that their beating is less than ours. It is true that more gays are beaten than straights, but that doesn’t alter the principle. Our very peacefulness in not beating up straights because they are straight works in our favor.
On the same hand, blacks should not ask for laws against beating up blacks — for there are plenty of laws against beating up fellow citizens who are black.
It’s the defense that is the problem. The offense is already legislated against. Attack the defenses — not the offense. It’s a crime already.
BrooklynBorn
Queerty hits a lazy low by mentioning the Phillip Nelson case. That was a proven fraud. Get on the ball, Queerty, you’re getting lazy.
MichaelCJ
@Jim Hlavac: I disagree. Hate crimes target communities, not just individuals. While current law in Oklahoma punishes a person for committing assault, there is not a law to punish that person for the psychological harm to the community. Crimes specifically targeting LGBT persons are meant to terrorize all members of the LGBT community, making them feel vulnerable and wonder who could be the next victim. Sadly, the victim becomes a “messenger” to their community. Similar crimes have been committed against African-Americans with the intent to terrorize all members of the African-American community.
Consequences for crime are meant to punish and condemn. For example: If someone vandalizes a home in a neighborhood with graffiti, the person responsible is punished for causing property damage. The punishment is also a message to the community that such behavior will not be tolerated. If that person vandalized the home by spray painting the n-word on the garage door, the judge and jury should consider the message sent by the crime to the African-American community when determining punishment.
Sadly, without hate crimes laws, not all judges and juries would consider the harm caused to the targeted community when determining punishment.
B
No. 3 · MichaelCJ wrote, “@Jim Hlavac: I disagree. Hate crimes target communities, not just individuals.”
… in addition, a hate crime in which a random person is targeted because of race, sexual orienation, what have you, are difficult to solve as there may be no evidence linking the assailant to the victim. In a typical murder, the victim and assailant know each other. In a robbery, the object stolen can be used as evidence.
With a “hate crime”, the assailant doesn’t care which individual in a community he targets, and can pick a time and place where the chances of being caught are low. Given that, an enhanced sentence is reasonable – if only to compensate for the reduced chance of being caught.
Now wait a dern second....
MichaelCJ makes an argument I don’t find compelling, but at least it is a long-established argument, which he makes well. But, B, your claim that “an enhanced sentence is reasonable – if only to compensate for the reduced chance of being caught” is sheer fantasy. You made that up. And it is a ridiculous proposition to any sane person who has ever read law.
BrooklynBorn
I, personally, believe in hate crime laws, but I do understand and respect some of the arguments brought up here against them. It’s very debatable.
ousslander
it’s all about thought police.
Because a gay guy gets mugged and beat up, it doesn’t make me sacred and feel targeted. if it happened near my work or home to anyone(staright, gay, black, yellow) then i might feel more scared. All crimes send a message to te city, state, country as a whole that we can get you anytime and you are not safe.
hate crimes I feel are for people who identify as weak nd helpless.
Syl
Hate crime legislation is necessary because the crimes are not random acts of reckless disregard, crimes of passion, or based on personal disputes (“You stole mah woman!” “Your fence goes onto my property!”). They are targeted at groups, and seek to, by harming an individual who belongs to the group (women, blacks, gays, transgenders, Latinos, Jews, Muslims) to intimidate the group as a whole. They’re acts of domestic terrorism, and usually intensify as the group in question starts to gain some of the rights they’ve been so long denied. The Klan,lynchings, those were a reaction to blacks getting more rights. White bigots sought to keep them in a position of subservience by means of terror. Remember, it took calling in the National Guard to integrate schools, and the FBI to break up the (second) Klan!
What LGBTQs are facing know is political violence. They-meaning the homophobes and Christofascists-want to keep us deprived of our rights, cowed, fearful, and ashamed! Our existence, our being able to be happy and successful and ourselves, challenges their upbringing in such a way that it provokes despair and violence! Until we have achieved full equality-ENDA passing, DOMA and DADT being repealed, gay marriage recognized at a federal level-we are second-class citizens and a persecuted minority!
All that said, I really think more queers should arm themselves. I’m personally going to get a Concealed Carry Permit as soon as I have the dough for a pistol. The only person you can trust to protect your rights is yourself.
TripleB
Syl : Since the majority of gay-bashings are done by people “of color”, how long before hate crime laws including homophobia are called “just another excuse to put more blacks away..”