The fortieth anniversary of Stonewall, the 1969 bar riot that kicked off the modern gay rights movement, was supposed to be a time of reflection. Judging from the gushing media coverage and flowery political speeches, it momentarily seemed that the struggle for equality had ended in victory. Out with marches and in with museums, where gay and straight people could walk the marble corridors and gasp in astonishment, “The police actually used to raid gay bars?”
When the Fort Worth police stormed the gay Rainbow Lounge at 1AM on Sunday, June 28, the patrons could be forgiven for thinking it was a quaint cabaret show in memory of Stonewall — very much like the Civil War reenactments so popular in the south. But, no, this was the real deal — a gang of gun-wielding thugs using their badges to badger helpless patrons who committed the crime of drinking beer while gay.
It was the third such raid of the night by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and Fort Worth police. They were allegedly harassing bar customers to crack down on public intoxication, which is as ridiculous as raiding the mall for public displays of shopping. While they claim they were carrying out their duty, it sure seems to me like a band of good ole boys with too much time on their hands. Instead of fighting real crime, becoming the criminals must have provided a greater adrenaline rush.
By the time these taxpayer supported public servants reached the gay bar, they unleashed a viciousness and violence not seen at the other establishments. According to the Dallas Voice, seven bar patrons were arrested on charges of public intoxication. One customer, Chad Gibson, suffered brain injuries during the raid and is still hospitalized, reportedly suffering from bleeding on his brain, which may require surgery.
The armed hooligans tried to excuse their thuggish behavior by reviving the stereotype of gay men as sexual predators. Incredibly, they claimed that as they stormed the bar, patrons made sexual advances.
Yeah, right.
They actually want people to believe that their magnetic, sexual appeal triggered the insatiable sexual appetites of the drunken gays, who thought they were being rushed by the Village People. That’ odd, because the patrons describe the invasion as more terrifying than titillating.
Clearly, the police are insulting the public’ intelligence by offering a lame, implausible excuse, based on bigotry. As they used to say when I lived in Texas: “They are shoveling ten pounds of shit into a five pound bag.”
And, quite frankly, it is irrelevant whether sexual advances were made. If Gibson had chased the officers across the dance floor with a male blow up doll, they are still guilty of excessive use of force. The police don’t have the authority to mug people — and when they do so, they transform from protectors to perpetrators.
In many ways, such actions are worse than hate crimes. We can accept the fact that wild-eyed, crazy extremists will always exist. But, when the cops become the criminals, it creates an insecurity and raw vulnerability that affects the entire GLBT community in a substantial way.
What is troubling is that Fort Worth is a sophisticated town teeming with gays. If a raid can happen here, it can happen anywhere. The city needs to quickly investigate this outrage and punish those who planned and participated in this brutal attack on innocent beer drinkers.
This week, President Obama met with gay leaders and offered more pretty words. He should be applauded for this meeting, because it does send the right message and adds to an atmosphere of acceptance that transcends policy.
Still, we need this president to make history because the discrimination faced by gay people is not a relic of the past. The hatred is alive, it is sometimes deadly and our lives — no matter how enchanted – can take a lethal turn if we are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
While I am thrilled that Obama recognized the rainbow flag, he and Congress must take action to end discrimination, because the Rainbow Lounge is a grim reminder that the fight for justice is far from over.
Tags: gay, harassment, police, Stonewall, Texas, violence23 Comments »
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This is outrageous! I am very concerned about this “police” action against innocent people by the state of Texas. The image of Texas has forever been tarnished by this action. I will never recommend anyone visit Texas nor vacation there. The gay community must take action; phone calls and emals to the officials in charge as well as demand an investigation by the FBI for civil rights abuses. Those injured should immediately file false imprisonment charges and civil lawsuits against all officers involved and criminal chages against any officer involved in the beating(s). The fight for equal rights and equality is not over!
Comment by John — June 30, 2009 @ 5:08 pm
Fort Worth may be a sophisticated city “teeming with gays,” but unfortunately, like so many cosmopolitan cities in the South/Southwest/Midwest, there still exists a nasty undercurrent of redneck homophobia among the uneducated segments of the population; when you factor in the fact that (and I’ve been friends with great cops, so don’t flame me for this) so many people are attracted to police work precisely because they have unresolved power issues and prejudices…well, things like this are still bound to happen from time to time.
Sad, indeed.
Comment by Evan — June 30, 2009 @ 9:34 pm
Were you there Wayne?
Comment by Charlene E. Hios — June 30, 2009 @ 9:43 pm
Why do you not believe the reason for the raid? How do you know what truly happen if you were not there. If you were not that is. Each person who was there whether it be a patron, the bar owner, or the government officer will have a different version of what happened that night. Each person reading what you have written here will have a different reaction to what you wrote.
Comment by Charlene E. Hios — June 30, 2009 @ 9:46 pm
With the technology of today perhaps someone had a video of what happen?
Comment by Charlene E. Hios — June 30, 2009 @ 9:48 pm
hmmm . . . Texas . . . on 10-5-1978 that is where I had “come out” . . in Fort Worth yet . . . at Carswell AFB even . . . I was a brave little butch back then who would kiss my girlfriend right in front of the rednecks . . . they did not voice any anger or act any out . . . you know that song, I think by Randy Travis . . . “all my exs live in Texas” . . that was me back then . . . I am not boasting . . . just sharing my view of Texas as a little butch back in 1978 to 1991
Comment by Charlene E. Hios — June 30, 2009 @ 9:52 pm
Of course as you know Wayne I now claim to have been healed of that life . . . maybe Michael should read this especially where he posted in another place on this blog site that I “claim” to have been a lesbian . . . so what claims shall we believe . . . it all is about individual perspectives Wayne . . . we see what we want to see and read into things what we want to read . . .
Comment by Charlene E. Hios — June 30, 2009 @ 9:56 pm
Charlene,
I have tried to become heterosexual and it did not work. I was in “ex gay” therapy for years and it did not work. When I accepted myself as gay, then that is only when I could be at peace with myself. And I have known same-sex couples who have been together for many years.
Being gay is not a lifestyle and the vast majority of gays who have tried to change, have failed. Many who failed, try to kill themselves because of the damage “ex gay” therapy has causes. Quit promoting dangerous myths.
Comment by James — July 1, 2009 @ 3:22 am
Charlene,
By the way, people who work at that bar, as well as MANY other people who witnessed the whole thing, said the same thing, that these police had an anti-gay agenda in what they were doing.
So don’t sit there and say it was the other way around. I doubt you were there either. And if you were, then I’d be carefule about promoting that you were there because a few years ago, Wayne caught an “ex gay” guy at a gay bar treating other guys to drinks.
What I do know, is that this would NEVER happen up here in the North. Here in New Jersey, and NYC, where they are more tolerant of gays, there would not be this kind of raid on a gay bar. Down in anti-gay Texas, a different story.
Comment by James — July 1, 2009 @ 3:28 am
Charlene Hios was 1,500 miles away — she is an ex-gay activist in Northern California.
She rejects the statements of numerous witnesses, their photograph of people being shoved violently to the ground, and the family of a seriously wounded man. Instead, she trusts a notoriously racist Texas police department.
From the New York Daily News:
and
From the Fort Worth Star Telegram:
From the Dallas Observer:
According to the Dallas Voice:
and:
and yet another eyewitness:
Comment by Michael Airhart — July 1, 2009 @ 6:37 am
“all my exs
live in Texas”
is a George Strait song, not randy travis.
Comment by Linda — July 1, 2009 @ 8:01 am
Charlene Hios’ indifference to apparent police violence, and her superficial perceptions of Texas, are sad but unsurprising to me. Compare her remarks here to her Facebook account and website.
Comment by Michael Airhart — July 1, 2009 @ 8:51 am
Michael please do not put words in my mouth. I did not reject anything, I just ask if Wayne witnessed the incident and I spoke about how people will look at things different depending on their perspective. Too many people see things only from their own perspective and that was my impression of what Wayne wrote in the orginal article on his blog and don’t you say otherwise Michael, you know better. You are working it. I was not working it. I do not work it, I speak the truth. When I posted there were no eyewitnesses etc.
Take care now and perhaps when people read or write things they should remember that people are going to see them from different perspectives . . . what is truth for many is hateful for some . . .
Comment by Charlene E Hios — July 2, 2009 @ 1:36 am
Thanks to whom ever corrected me on who wrote the all my exs live in Texas. George and Randy were both pretty popular around that time and I often would get them mixed up. I know I just enjoyed dancing to their stuff.
I am not an exgay activist by the way. I am a former homosexual who now speaks to churches and shares how the church can reach out to the homosexual person with the love of Jesus Christ and not push the homosexual person away with judgment, perceived or otherwise.
Take care now.
Comment by Charlene E Hios — July 2, 2009 @ 1:42 am
James I am not presenting any myth. I came out of my identity as a butch not with any exgay ministry but with a church who loved me and accepted me just as I was, they were not hateful to me, they were loving to me, it was the conviction of the Holy Spirit that took me out of that life. I can not speak for others who have tried to come out of it, I can only speak about what happen in my life. My only question to you James would be why did you go to exgay therapy any way? Please know I am not as hateful as Michael or Wayne try to make me out to be. I am a God fearing woman who shares my personal testimony. I do not try to change anyone’s sexual orientation, I am not that powerful, change comes, I believe only through the power of God and a lot of struggle on the one who is changing . . . it does not happen overnight at least not for me . . . it took over two years of a personal relationship with Jesus before the scales fell off my eyes. If people do not want to change then why do so many try. By the way that question should only be answered by someone who has tried, not by someone who has read stories about others who have tried . . . only those who have truly changed or truly tried to change have the authority to speak on the matter, don’t you agree? How can those who have never experienced it even speak to it . . . take care again and please know i do care about anyone who may have been injured in what happened in this bar yet please remember once more, depending on whose shoes you are wearing and what all the circumstances are we can not speak for or against anything until the whole picture is revealed. We all see only a small part of the picture. Can we at least agree on that?
Comment by Charlene E Hios — July 2, 2009 @ 2:00 am
Charlene, I HAVE tried to change so yeah maybe I DO have authority over the matter to speak of it.
I am not going to agree on anything with you Charlene. I went through “ex gay” therapy, it did not work for me and the only thing that worked was to accept myself as gay, who I was.
Now you’re just sitting there calling me a liar, but yes I have tried to change, and it failed. Don’t tell me to try again, and don’t sit there and tell me that change is possible for anyone, I know that’s a lie too.
I must ask you Charlene, what made you think you were gay? Did you experience homosexual feelings from an early age, even before you knew what gay was or anything about sexual orientation? Because I did. No one “turned” me gay, I did not have an absent father figure, no I liked guys before I even knew what gay was. That was what was confusing about it. It wasn’t until AFTER I found what gay was that I knew to call those feelings gay.
Now what about you Charlene? Did some other girl have sex with you and you liked it and you thought you became gay? Because sex and sexual orientation are 2 different things, you can have sex with other girls, but it does not mean you LIKE those other girls in a romantic way, thereby meaning you are not necessarily gay.
Comment by James — July 2, 2009 @ 6:27 am
And also Charlene,
During my course of “ex gay” therapy I have tried to be in relationships with girls. No matter how many girls I was in a relationship with, I could never find myself happy. The only thing that made me happy was to be in a relationship with another man. It is so fulfilling for me. In my ENTIRE life I have NEVER felt the same way about a girl, never been attracted to girls the way I am with other guys.
I am not going to take part in the destructive heterosexual lifestyle any longer.
Sit there and argue with me all you want, but I know that my homosexuality is a part of who I am, regardless of whether or not it is true for you.
Comment by James — July 2, 2009 @ 6:33 am
But really Charlene, I think you need to get the fcuk outta here and troll some other forum that will take your wicked bigotry.
What purpose do you have for coming here? Don’t the “ex gay” ministries say that their purpose is to rid homosexuals of their “unwanted” homosexual desires?
Because my homosexual desires are not “unwanted” and niether are a lot of others here. So you got no business coming here.
Comment by James — July 2, 2009 @ 6:35 am
Charlene, it’ not for me to deny anyone else’ experience: only they know what has taken place. I have to say, however, that some of the language that you have used makes me suspicious, e.g. “the scales fell off my eyes”. That doesn’t sound to me like someone who found herself landed with an unwanted same-sex orientation which was then divinely changed, but more like someone for whom being a lesbian was indeed a chosen “lifestyle” and who had changed her mind. Were you perhaps what I believe is known as a “political lesbian”?
Even if that is not the case, and you had an unwanted same-sex orientation that really did change, we have to bear in mind that some women’ sexuality is more fluid than men’. For us gay men, our sexuality is NOT a chosen lifestyle but a given; it very seldom changes; and there is no credible evidence that a change can be deliberately engineered. Any gay male who is waiting for God to change his orientation is probably going to wait till the Day of Judgment.
You ask why so many people try to change their sexuality. You must know perfectly well why. Usually it’ either because they want desperately to “fit in” and be like everyone else or because their religious upbringing has taught them that their natural sexuality is somehow “bad” or “wrong” or even “evil”. Fortunately, thank God, the number of people buying this has diminished, is diminishing and will continue to diminish.
I won’t recount my own experience in detail here, as it’ very similar to James’, except that I didn’t go through “ex-gay” therapy — I don’t think that there were any such programmes around in England when I was growing up; if there were, I never knew about them, which is a blessing. Suffice it to say that I was a practising Christian since childhood, and no amount of sexual abstinence, prayer, reading the Bible, attending church etc. altered my sexual orientation one whit.
After running the Courage Trust (UK) for fourteen years, its founder and director, Jeremy Marks, finally conceded that he had failed to change his own sexual orientation; that “none of the people we’ve counselled have converted no matter how much effort and prayer they’ve put into it”; and that he had ceased to be a believer in the “ex-gay” process.
My advice to any gay man is: ignore all the hot air coming from the ex-gay lobby, and — unless you feel a GENUINE vocation to celibacy (i.e. NOT one based on the mistaken belief that homosexuality or gay sex is “wrong”), which is very rare — find yourself a proper boyfriend to love and share your life with, if you haven’t already got one. Such a relationship is good and beautiful, and can be positively therapeutic. To encourage a gay man to reject that option and to hang on expecting or hoping that he will become heterosexual is misguided, cruel and irresponsible.
Comment by William — July 2, 2009 @ 7:30 am
Charlene,
For all your self-reflection here, you have failed to condemn the police violence in Fort Worth which was confirmed by several witnesses.
That, and your assumption that we haven’t tried to change, raise the likelihood that you fundamentally misunderstand people who are honest about their sexual orientation. You seem to be clueless about the injustices and inequalities that gay people of faith confront and courageously overcome.
You are not the victim here. The folks in Fort Worth are.
Comment by Michael Airhart — July 2, 2009 @ 9:42 am
James, I looked at that website and from the looks of it she’s had as much luck dating the opposite sex as you:
“Her last lesbian relationship ended in 1991. She has not experienced a romantic or sexual
relationship with a man, but says she is open to the idea of dating the opposite sex”
Sounds like she’s not straight, she just wants a church to accept her as not gay.
Comment by Penguinsaur — July 4, 2009 @ 1:47 pm
After Goggling for work here, I have come across this article with great alarm. Though I am unaware of the current status of this legal status as of 11/11/2009 (Litigation against the Officers). However, I am outraged by the issues of fact in the above issue. Residing in New York, we have rights and “respects for others”, regardless of the skin colors (inside or out). And being in a position that operator a Business of Concern in Ft. Worth from New York makes me question on “how can they enter a private/public club without a warrant?” This is another Stonewall. I am shocked, speechless, and heated! I would gather statements of Fact, with Notarized signatures and file a civil suit against the officers. Where is Cell phone cellphone photographs on this issue? Where is the camera footage within the BAR? Protesting with signs would be short term. Filing suits with cellphone photographs, film footage are more powerful then Officers abusing their Official Duties to “Protect” – NOT Violate the welfare of the community! Where is the ACLU?
Comment by David Scott — November 12, 2009 @ 1:19 am
Box Turtle Bulletin published several photos of the raid.
http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/tag/rainbow-lounge
Comment by Michael Airhart — November 12, 2009 @ 10:37 am