“Two teens, accused of beating a gay teenage hairdresser to death in what the police claim was a homophobic attack have been charged with his murder. 18-year-old Michael Causer was set upon by three youths on Friday 25th July and suffered serious head injuries. Despite surgery to try to reduce swelling on his brain, he died at 2:30pm on Saturday 2nd August. Gavin Alker, 19 and James O’Connor, 19 formerly of Huyton, Merseyside, appeared at Liverpool Crown Court today.” [Pink News]
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tim
Put them in jail for the rest of life…period.
seitan-on-a-stick
Eminem and Courtney Love have a Love Child! Sorry, if it’s the gay one pictured without a notation! We’re left to guessing….
mark
lock and load
Paul Raposo
You know, when I read stories like this I get sad–and very pissed off. I read blogs where anti-gay people say we should have thicker skins and “respect” their opinions about us; conservatives who claim to be pro-gay, yet side with an anti-gay party; gay conservatives who are more viciously anti-gay than Jerry Falwell could have ever been; and I wonder how I put up with it all.
This kid is dead for no other reason than he was gay and a couple of anti-gay douchebags didn’t like that. I’m sure someone along the way coddled their anti-gay hate and told those around them to tolerate their intolerance. I’m sure friends ignored their bigotry and passed it off as them being “funny,” or teasing. Now look what that indifferenace has come to.
When I hear some jackass going on–as they believe intellectually–on an anti-gay rant and I decide to tune them in, they do one of two things: get dumber, or get louder.
It’s gotten to the point that I don’t even socialize with straight people all that much. I have a small group of friends, most of which are GLBTQ’s and some very close straight friends that I would kill, or die for. Yet when a situation comes up and I have to deal with hets I don’t know in a social setting and something regarding the GLBTQ community comes up, I’m finding it harder to control my rage in the face of thier anti-gay bias.
So how do you all deal with it? I know I’m blessed in that my rep proceeds me and most people stay off my bad side lest receiving a toungue lashing, or a regular lashing, so I have a bit of an advantage. And further, in most instances I only have to deal with whom I want to and those I don’t want to deal with are passed onto others. But how do you all go through the day dealing with either outright anti-gay people, or apathetic straight people?
tallskin
Paul, I am much like you. I have cut right down on my straight contacts, except at work.
Two of my gay friends here at the elephant & castle, in central london, had abuse shouted at them on Sunday from a black on a bicycle – he shouted “Boom Bye Bye, Battyman” at them. Like I said to them, if I’d been there I’d have had the fucker, and he’d have been off his bike on the ground, snivelling. But I do have the advantage of being 6’3″ and musclebound.
Religion is definitely playing A BIG PART in all this. Black evangelical churches here are telling their congregations every week that homosexuality is an abomination against the lord. Catholic church leaders are telling their flock the same, albeit in slightly more discrete language. Then there is that prostestant bitch in nothern ireland. There is not a direct relationship between a politician/church-wanker being anti-gay and a gay kid being kicked to death or abused, but the connection exists. Such public hostility creates an environment where straights think it’s the green light to attack gays.
ajax
Paul and Tallskin – clearly both of you are quite articulate. It’s unfortunate that you’ve chosen to stop your associations with straight people – especially the haters. Believe me, I understand how exhausting it is to confront bigots, but indifference toward them is not the answer. Paul, as you said: “Now look what that indifferenace has come to.”
Tom
It is also unfortunate that Tallskin has a little of his own bigotry that he needs to (but probably won’t) confront. When discussing black homophobes he made it a point to highlight their race, but when talking about catholics or the “protestant bitch” in Ireland, race is not mentioned.
As long as people continue to see their group identification as different and superior to other groups, hate and violence will continue. Race bigots are no different than gay bigots.
CHURCHILL-Y
I see no bigotry in Tallskin’s comment.
He’s speaking truth and the truth sometimes hurts. While the Catholic and Irish protestants are homophobic in their world views they cannot be compared to the homicidal acts being condone by Black Evangelical churches, who in a great majority are attended(in the case of the UK) by immigrants(a double whammy) who should know better.
chuck
Tom I do not think that Taliskin is being any more bigoted in referencing black evangilical churches in England, than it is for me to reference black Baptist churches here in the USA, who also regularly preach that it is an ‘abomination’ to be gay.
Sadly, it has reached the point, on both sides of the pond, where a gay person cannot defend himself from the abuse that comes from so many directions, including the heteros, the black community, the church, the fundamentalists and self-loathing, gay homophobes.
They call us all sorts of hateful names and make bigoted references to us all the time under the guise of ‘free speech’, but get all uptight with the LGBT community when we try to defend ourselves and fight back.
I get just a little pissed off when I hear members of our community telling us how we need to be more ‘thick skinned”, “more like men”, “stop being so sensitive” and “Get a grip” when we are being beaten-up and murdered left and right just because they ‘don’t approve’ of us.
We didn’t create the hatred, bigotry or the violence. And we are not beating up and killing str8 people. They are. Place the blame where it properly belongs and cut the ‘We need to look to ourselves crap”, as if if we deserve what we are getting.
Jesus, to hear some of the naysayers I encounter on these gay blogs, I sometimes get the impression that we gays are our own worst enemies.
Churchill-y's an Ignorant Pig
Churchill-y sees no bigotry because as anyone who’s read this blog more than once can tell you, he’s a bigoted, ignorant pig.
CHURCHILL-Y
The facts don’t lie, I’m not advocating for violence and murder against anyone but black churches and institutions both here and in the UK and in every country they inhabit continually do.
CHUCK: You have written my sentiment brilliantly, but like you wrote in your last sentence don’t expect to find many here who see the truth in your comments. The great majority who come here are apologist for those who want to kill us.
Those “naysayers” continually sabotage the advances made in the GLBT community and vilify those of us who are not willing to go back to the closet and the bad old days.
Crazy in Alabama
I guess I better stop going to my black evangelical church, where I am open with my sexuality, because they might kill me. Or, at the very least, condone my murder.
It’s disappointing to read comments where people throw out these glittering generalities for the sake of “strengthening” their arguments.
Also, are black churches the biggest threat to the gay communities in the US and the UK? Let me know, because I personally see a much greater challenge in an entire party (and we all know which party that is!) that not once, but twice, shifted the nation’s attention away from the economy, the war and the failed No Child Left Behind Act, and on to law-abiding, tax paying citizens who want to pair-off and be happy. Hopefully, that won’t happen this time.
Anyways, I notice that race comes up often. What the fuck? This story is about three white kids in the UK. Too bad we can’t lament for Michael without thinking about those wretched Negroids. I don’t think Churchill-y even sees black people, but rather black monsters.
It’s true Churchill-y, I’m sitting here thinking about how I can further undermine one part of me (black) while another part (gay) blogs about it.
The only commenter on this story who should “toughen up” is the person who continues to make such statements… Churchill-y.
Mr C
OH GOD C________-y is back she scraped up enough money to pay the internet bill. And is now defending WHITE HOMOPHOBES. And still wishing hate on us BLACKS!
He said:I’m not advocating for violence and murder against anyone but black churches and institutions both here and in the UK and in every country they inhabit continually do.
You RABID IDIOT Why don’t you and your FAMILY go somewhere catch a disease and PLEASE DIE PAINFULLY You viral excuse for a RABID SORRID FAG!
You’re a HATEFUL BASTARD
But of course it’s done behind the screen of a computer.
UGH!
mark
Paul and Tallskin
I also prefer to live my life as seperate from heterosexuals as I can. When I can’t avoid contact I’m civil with them , but they would never be more than an assosiate, my friends are all queers.
chuck
Hatred is neither a black or white issue. There is enough blame to go around on all sides.
Hatred and bigotry emanates from all sources including those organizations with nice, family orientated, warm, fuzzy-sounding names designed to conjure up the image of God, love, compassion and acceptance.
Regardless of where the hatred is coming from, we LGBT folks need to confront it…even if it means stepping on a few toes. And the church is certainly, by it’s hostile stance against gays, not immune.
And just because I am white, does not mean that I condone and justify the bad things that white people routinely do as well. I am as quick to blow the whistle on hateful and bigoted whites as I am on hateful and bigoted blacks, or any other ethnic group of people who take a dump on LGBT folks when it suits them. We are all living in glass houses when it comes down to promoting and disseminating hatred.
When we in the gay community conscientiously choose to not see or ignore what is coming down, then we are giving our assent and approval to the wrong-doing and the continuation of it.
greybat
No.12-
Crazy- stay with your church. You do a lot of good by going there, because people only change their thoughts about Gay men and women when they know some personally.It puts a human face on the issue.