Nearly year after a shocking gay-bashing at New York’s Stonewall Inn, Benjamin Carver’s assailants have pleaded guilty to assault and hate-crime charges and will spend the next two years in prison.Last October, Benjamin Carver and his boyfriend were at the historic Stonewall Inn in the West Village for the first time. While Carver was taking care of business in the bathroom, Matt Francis, 21, and Christopher Orlando, 17, asked him what kind of bar Stonewall was. When Carver told them it was a gay bar (um, duh), Francis replied, “Get away from me, faggot! I don’t like gay people. Don’t pee next to me.” The men demanded cash and when Carver refused, Orlando held him down while Francis punched him several times. The men were arrested but pled not guilty to charges of assault and attempted robbery.
Carver took the high road after the incident, posting on Facebook, “We must be better than these bullies, I forgave these men immediately. What I hope is that these men are given help to understand that all human life is precious and that violence is never acceptable.”
Now, finally, it looks like Francis and Orlando will learn that lesson the hard way.
Today Carver posted, “Just got word from the New York DA’s office: The guys who attacked me at Stonewall pleaded guilty to hate crime and violent assault. Two years in prison.” It’s obscene that assaults like this still happen, but it’s nice to know the system can work.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Our advice to Francis and Orlando? Don’t ask too many questions in the bathrooms at Rikers.
TMikel
While I applaud Carver, I find his comment, ” I hope is that these men are given help to understand that all human life is precious and that violence is never acceptable.” interesting. Time in prison may well help these to to understand that all life is precious. Sometimes our system works. I hope in two years we have a follow up on these two that helps us understand their experiences and, and one hopes, more acceptance of others.
just sayin
Wouldn’t be queerty without the obligatory prison rape ‘joke’.
jason
I hope Matt Francis spends time in a cell with an inmate called Bubba who has bad breath and a big cock.
Robin
Hope their asses are torn open at Rikers…
vixlad
They are getting what they deserve. Hateful jerks.
Thomas Maguire
No one has made a comment as to how they think the homophobe in the picture is cute.
I find it odd.
MikeE
@Thomas Maguire: since you asked, can we say the exact opposite? like, ewwww! he looks like a mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger.
Hyhybt
@jason: @Robin: @vixlad: And that would only serve to make them MORE hateful by the time they get out.
ewe
Pleading guilty means you know you did something wrong. It really really does.
vancedecker
@just sayin: I for one am not a fan. No access to silicone based lube nor douche nozzles for the showers. I can just imagine the smell now along with the top saying ‘you’re okay man, don’t worry it’s natural’ …gross!
Shynook
Ho-hum. Those guys have been in and out of prison already, before this. And probably always will be. Gay bashers usually are career criminals as well, even hough gays like to pretend they’re always Republicans coming home from church.
Chancery
It does seem like gaybashings, all the ones in the last few years anyway, are committed by those with prior criminal records and prison time. And these two guys are the types of idiots who will then rape a guy in prison and still consider themselves totally straight because the prison sex “doesn’t count.” Yes, I’ve known ex-cons. It’s a bizarre mindset.
ewe
@Chancery: straight guys in general is a bizarre mindset.
jason
Ewe,
On the subject of straight guys having a bizarre mindset, I truly believe it comes from repressing their same-sex attractions. While I agree that many are indeed attracted to women, they are also attracted to men but are too afraid to admit it. Hiding it is a full-time occupation. When it reveals itself, it provokes a violent reaction within which is then projected onto gay men.
As an example of how bizarre straight guys can be, have you noticed how their adult magazines and videos always contain lesbian scenes? Their attraction to homosexual interactions between women are, according to them, an indication of their heterosexuality. Heterosexuality, my foot. I’ve sometimes pointed out to straight guys that their interest in lesbians proves that they have a homosexual fetish. You should see how they react – some have threatened violence against me.
All in all, straight guys are truly screwed. Shit on them and dump them.
kyle
Agree with Jason.
Robin
Agree with Jason. Once Francis limps out of jail, perhaps he will do the gay community a favour and off himself!
Kev C
I agree with jason but I think the psychology is more basic than that. 2 men bond, they hang out together, they have so much in common, and they have sex drives but no girlfriends. They could be mistaken as gay. So how do they prove that they are straight? By bashing gays.
ewe
@jason: so true. However when alone with any one of them they will tend to want to have sex. lol. Their is a theory that homosexual sex is to remain in the closet and taboo because if it isn’t then the thrill will be gone. Wacky i know.
J. Bocca
I live in staten island and know Matt’s sister whos a huge dike. I don’t believe this guy is homophobic, he just did a stupid thing. Be easy fellas.
ewe
@J. Bocca: 2 years is easy Fella.
ewe
@J. Bocca: and if you know his sister slap her brother across the face for me. He is an asshole. BTW i have a neighbor who is a big ol straight. Dumb dumb and dumber. Pipe down. Staten Island already has a shitty enough image.
Ogre Magi
@Robin: They will probably end up raping some small skinny guy who is in jail for selling pot! America sucks!
Jeffrey Drummond
Prison rape is NOT a joke. It is illegal, evil, and damaging to brain structure and to person. Enlightened people should recognize that it’s a big part of the reason prisoners become more violent and law-breaking when their term is over.
Stop making prison rape jokes, people, please.
Ruhlmann
@jason: They are mainly attracted to taboo and or easy one way non reciprocal sex. That isn’t gay. I have had blowjobs, performed cunnilingus and missionary sex with women that I have enjoyed because of risky situations/places and sex is sex is sex. I consider myself homosexual because of the emotional give and take I get from men that just isn’t natural in me towards women. I am not attracted to women emotionaly which is the decider. Any woman I have had sex with has made herself available to me and I have always told them I am homosexual. I used to have intense orgasms with a woman who blew me every Thursday night when her husband went to titty bars because I worked with the guy, hated his guts because he used to try to draw me out on my sexuality. I don’t take home to work or work home and I am open but not to people I don’t like. Anyway the reason I had strictly oral sex with this woman is because it turned me on intensely to dump a load into the mouth he kissed ha!
jason
I also happen to think that bonding between straight-identifying men is itself an aphrodisiac for them.
Straight-identifying men get turned on by being with each other. They share fantasies of women, talk dirty to each other about women, and basically visit brothels together. It enables them to achieve their goal of masculinity, which is to be sufficiently “muscular” to be able to ejaculate over or inside a woman. Keep in mind that the act of ejaculation requires muscular contractions.
When same-sex thoughts enter the picture, it interferes with male bonding. It presents a scenario that runs counter to their goal of masculinity. Some men can cope with this but some can’t. Those who can’t often take it out on those whom they perceive to be responsible for the interference.
ewe
@Ruhlmann: well. ya don’t say? lmao.
ewe
@jason: It all comes down to boundaries and other people i don’t even know are not going to dictate to me who i can love and fuck and more importantly how i should feel about myself. Those same nitwits do whatever the hell they want to do and would blow a fuse if someone told them the things they tell others.
jason
Ruhlmann,
What you are describing is fetish, not orientation. They are two distinct things. A fetish is not defined by gender.
For instance, a gay man might become sexually aroused while being spanked by a woman. This is not a contradictory notion – his sexual orientation is intact even though his fetish might suggest otherwise.
Chancery
Whoa ! For myself only : just because I said guys like these two will rape another guy in prison but will still consider themselves totally straight (instead of sexually-flexible) doesn’t mean I’m putting down heterosexuality. My favorite family members, and a lot of my friends, are hets ! I’m just saying criminal-types, from the ones I’ve known, always have a strange mentality and ways of justifying their behavior.
Ruhlmann
@jason: Some of what I described of course is fetish but a straight guy getting a blowjob from a gay guy is not same sex attraction. It is convenience, it is opportunistic sex without attraction. It is also very rare.
You state straight men are all repressing their same sex attractions. Straight men might be drawn or in the strictest sense of the word “attracted” to qualities in other men that they admire and respect. Having this returned is mutually validating and is the bedrock of general and personal socialisation. To consign something that is very normal to sexual attraction is too broad a brush. Most of the time it really is only a cigar.