A new study released today by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, the primary resource for independent research and scholarship on sexual orientation and gender identity issues in the United States, analyzed FBI hate crimes data and found that gay men report higher rates of hate-motivated physical violence than other at-risk minority groups. The study is the first to consider lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals separately.

These results come on the heels of previous research by the Southern Poverty Law Center showing that LGBT people are far more likely to be victims of hate crimes than any other minority group in the United States; the Williams Center’s news release also notes that crimes motivated by the victim’s real or perceived sexual orientation tend to be more violent. It also calls the study’s findings “troubling” and calls for further research into the reasons “why gay men are more likely to experience and/or report physical victimization and crimes against their property.”

From the release:

Among the research findings, 26 in 100,000 gay men reported being victims of hate-motivated crimes against persons, compared to 10 in 100,000 lesbians, 5 in 100,000 African Americans, and 5 in 100,000 Jewish Americans. Gay men also face the second highest risk of being victims of hate-motivated property crime (9 in 100,000 gay men). Further, reporting of such hate crimes is likely under represented since data reflect only those who report such crimes to local law enforcement, who then choose whether to report the data to the FBI.

Although prior research has suggested that lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, Jews, and African Americans experience similar levels of overall victimization, this study is the first to demonstrate that when lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals are considered separately, gay men experience more hate crimes.

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission is reporting that approximately 40 LGBT-identified or LGBT-perceived Iraqis have been kidnapped, brutally tortured, and murdered in a shocking surge of targeted anti-gay violence:

According to Iraqi human rights activists, in early February 2012, an unidentified group posted death threats against “the adulterous individuals” in the pre-dominantly [sic] Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad and Basra. The threats gave the individuals, whose names and ages were listed, four days to stop their behavior or else face the wrath of God, and were to be carried out by the Mujahedin. According to sources inside Iraq, as the result of this new surge of anti-gay violence close to 40 people have been kidnapped, brutally tortured and murdered. The Iraqi authorities have neither responded to this targeted violence nor have they publically denounced it. It is widely believed that these atrocities are being committed by a group of the Shiite militia.

The Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq provides (WARNING: link contains graphic photo) further information about the crimes, including method of execution:

New barbaric attacks started against the Iraqi lgbt in many cities like Baghdad and Basra while using inhumane methods such as hitting the head and body parts of gay victims with building concrete blocks repeatedly till death or by pushing them over high building roof which took place in Basra city. . . News confirmed that 42 gay men were tortured and killed so far, mostly by concrete blocks, while some by dismembering.

The Iraqi government and other world governments, particularly that of the United States of America, must unequivocally condemn the violent campaign of intimidation and murder being waged against Iraqi LGBTs. Additionally, the Iraqi government has an obligation to immediately quash this reign of terror and bring the murderers swiftly to justice.

The House of Representatives in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico is likely to vote this week on an amendment to the island’s penal code that would strip sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression from the 2004 hate crimes statute, according to Michael Lavers of EDGE Boston.

The proposed changes, approved last week by the Puerto Rican Senate, would also eliminate hate crimes protections for people victimized on the basis of religious beliefs and ethnicity. Leaders of Puerto Rico’s LGBT and Dominican communities held a joint press conference yesterday to criticize the legislation, which is being considered in an extraordinary session convened by Governor Luis Fortuño.

According to Pedro Julio Serrano of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, LGBT-identified Puerto Ricans face violence on an “epidemic” scale. In July, Serrano reported that twenty LGBT people have been murdered in Puerto Rico since January of 2010. The 2004 penal code requires the authorities to investigate whether the killings were motivated by the victims’ sexual orientation or gender identity; however, Lavers writes that the Puerto Rico Department of Justice’s own reports reveal that “prosecutors have yet to convict anyone of a bias-motive crime on the island.”

Puerto Rico joins a growing list of places around the world where LGBTs face orchestrated legislative bullying, including Nigeria, Russia, Uganda, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe.

Jim Burroway summarizes the end of this tragic story:

Brandon McInerney, who was a fourteen-year-old Oxnard Middle School student when he shot Larry King in school at point blank range in 2008, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and the use of a fire arm in a plea deal which will result in a 21 year prison term in addition to time served. Under the terms of his plea deal, McInerney, who is now 17, will be released shortly before his 39th birthday. McInerney will be formally sentenced on December 19.

McInerney’s plea deal comes after a mistrial was declared in his first trial after jurors were unable to reach a verdict. They had deadlocked at 7 to 5 in favor of finding McInerney guilty of voluntary manslaughter, with the five holding out for either second or first degree murder.

One boy’s life is over and another one’s life might as well be, as [let's be real here] when Brandon gets out of jail, the likelihood of him going on to a really successful life is slim. Jim goes on to quote Eliza Byard of the Gay & Lesbian Education Network, who captures some of my feelings about this in pointing out that, though the sentence for McInerney is necessary, the underlying problems that led to this event are not solved. Fear and hatred ended Larry King’s life, and kids aren’t born with that. Here’s part of Eliza’s quote:

Homophobia and transphobia, compounded by the lack of counseling and other supports for struggling young people, resulted in Larry King’s death and the effective end of Brandon McInerney’s life. As adults and as a society, we must find the resolve to fix the broken systems that lost two young lives to hate and fear.

This just didn’t have to happen, and my heart breaks for everyone involved.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oct. 11, 2011

Contact:
Apreill Hartsfield
334.356.8458 / apreill.hartsfield@splcenter.org

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Truth Wins Out (TWO) launched a national campaign today targeting conversion therapy, a thriving practice that claims to “convert” people from homosexuality to heterosexuality. The groups made the announcement in coordination with today’s National Coming Out Day.

The campaign will begin with a series of community meetings in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., for survivors of the practice, which has been discredited or highly criticized by virtually all major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional counseling organizations. Survivors are also invited to share their own stories at www.splcenter.org/conversion-therapy. The campaign also will encourage community advocates and elected leaders to scrutinize local conversion therapy programs.

“Conversion therapy programs have devastated all too many lives and families by attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation,” said Christine Sun, deputy legal director, who leads the SPLC’s LGBT rights project. “This practice is based on nothing more than junk science and must stop.”

“There’s a serious concern that the damage inflicted by conversion therapy can reach far beyond the individual receiving the ‘therapy’ and into communities across the country,” said Wayne Besen, founder and executive director of Truth Wins Out.

Central to conversion therapy – sometimes known as reparative or “sexual reorientation” therapy – is the belief that being gay is a mental disorder – a position rejected by the American Psychiatric Association nearly four decades ago. People who have undergone conversion therapy have reported increased anxiety, depression, and in some cases, suicidal ideation.

Despite these findings, the conversion therapy movement continues to push its message and is increasingly targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth, often recommending that parents commit their children to treatment against the child’s wishes.

The American Medical Association officially “opposes the use of ‘reparative’ or ‘conversion’ therapy that is based on the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that the patient should change his/her homosexual orientation.”

In 2006, the American Psychological Association declared: “There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed.”

Yet the message that LGBTQ people can and should change their sexual orientation is echoed throughout the literature promoting conversion therapy:

Absurd theories and treatments also are promoted within the conversion therapy movement:

There are other troubling aspects of this practice. The American Psychological Association expressed concern in 2006 that the positions espoused by some of the leading advocates of conversion therapy, such as the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), “create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.”

The potential for conversion therapy to foster an anti-LGBT atmosphere is another concern for the SPLC, which analyzed 14 years of federal hate crime data and found that homosexuals are far more likely to be victims of a violent hate crime than any other minority group in the United States. The SPLC also has worked to combat anti-gay bullying in schools.

###

The Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Alabama with offices in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, is a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society. For more information, see www.splcenter.org.

Truth Wins Out (TWO) is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to create a world where LGBT individuals can live openly, honestly and true to themselves. TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes their leaders. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.

###

1. Richard Cohen, Straight Talk About Homosexuality: The Other Side of Tolerance, 2010, p. 112.
2. Joseph Nicolosi and Linda Ames Nicolosi, A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, 2002, p. 22.
3. Ibid., p. 24.
4. Joseph J. Nicolosi, Shame and Attachment Loss: The Practical Work of Reparative Therapy, 2009, p. 39.

By now, readers are probably familiar with the basic bones of this story. Two Wednesdays ago, Jerry Pittman, Jr., and his boyfriend Dustin Lee were on their way into a church service in Fruitland, Tennessee, when Jerry’s father, the church’s pastor, yelled, “Sic ‘em!,” at which point two deacons and Jerry’s uncle began to shout homophobic slurs and attack them physically, in order to prevent them from coming in. The story has shocked people across the country and around the world, as it has gone viral this week, causing millions of people who had never heard of Fruitland to shake their heads, appalled that something like that could happen in the year 2011 in the United States.

Quite frankly, Jerry is surprised to be in this situation at all. Speaking to him by phone this morning, I learned that the couple had commonly attended church there, and had felt as welcome as was possible in this extremely conservative pocket of West Tennessee. The week before the assault, Jerry’s boyfriend even attended a service alone and was invited onto the stage by Jerry’s dad, Jerry Pittman, Sr., to sing. How did this happen?

Grace Fellowship Church isn’t pro-gay, by any means, but Jerry described a status quo where people simply agreed not to discuss matters like homosexuality. As long as it wasn’t “in anyone’s face,” a live and let live arrangement was in place. The senior Pittman preached against homosexuality from the pulpit, but mostly when his son wasn’t there. Jerry’s stepmother, however, is completely supportive of him, and of his boyfriend, and he believes that this is the primary reason they hadn’t faced much vocal opposition in the church. However, when his father and stepmother started divorce proceedings, the floodgates opened and the church no longer felt the need to stay silent about Jerry, Jr. and his boyfriend.

Even then, why the violence?

“The church acted as four people, instead of as a congregation,” Jerry said to me, describing the day of the attack. His father had actually been arrested earlier that day, for theft over $10,000, related to the divorce, but had somehow, perhaps as a gesture of good old boy justice, made it back to the church in time to order an attack on his son. Though Jerry called 911, when the police arrived, they refused to take a report from the boys, and even allowed the men to continue shouting anti-gay slurs at them. The police report filed starts with the words, “I called Jerry Pittman…” [speaking of the father and pastor, of course]. Jerry, Jr. and his boyfriend filed charges against the four men the next morning.

Then the fun really began. One of the men involved in the attack, Eugene McCoy, filed charges several days after the fact, claiming that it was Jerry, Jr. who had started it. Then, last Thursday, one of the other attackers, Jerry’s uncle Patrick Flatt, was allegedly stabbed in his garage by two men in masks. He somehow survived. A couple of days later, according to Jerry, Eugene McCoy packed up some of his possessions and moved, only to have his house burn down the next morning. Draw your own conclusions on these incidents, but the investigations are pending.

Everyone is due in court on November 22, and Jerry is unsettled. He mentioned that he and Dustin are having a hard time finding a lawyer to represent them in their case, because in Gibson County, Tennessee, and surrounding areas, “no one wants to take the ‘gay’ case.” Apparently representing assault victims is just a bridge too far for certain members of the Tennessee Bar when the victims are gay. [Because of the counter-charges filed, it's a bit difficult for the District Attorney to represent both sides.] Jerry, Jr. lost his job because he’s missed too much work in the days after the attack, and he and Dustin don’t really feel safe at home.

Of course, it’s hard for a young gay couple to feel completely safe in rural West Tennessee in the first place. A news reporter from Jackson, Tennessee, in a “man on the street”-style report, asked someone what he would do if his son brought his boyfriend to church. The man’s answer wasn’t aired, because he said unequivocally that he would shoot them. Jerry did say, however, that they are receiving a lot of messages of support from people in the area, proving that not everyone in the South is hellbent on hating gay people.

For now, Jerry and his boyfriend will watch, wait and do what they have to do to get past this incident. As we have reached the tipping point in American public acceptance of gay people, we have had many hopeful moments for a future where all truly are treated equally in this society. Stories like these are stark reminders of the fact that, at least in some pockets, we still have a very, very long way to go.

For the last month, the loons competing for the chance to lose to Barack Obama in next year’s presidential election have been running around Iowa campaigning, and because the GOP base is what it is, they’ve been working their hardest to prove that they each deserve the title of America’s Greatest Bigot.  It’s sad that this is what’s now being reported out of Waterloo, Michele Bachmann’s hometown:

A brutal fight that claimed the life of a Waterloo teen started with taunting, witnesses said.

Police confirmed that 19-year-old Marcellus Richard Andrews was officially pronounced dead at about 3:30 p.m. Sunday. Relatives and acquaintances said he died after being removed from life support at an Iowa City hospital.

“It’s just not fair,” said friend Nakita Wright. “I don’t wish that to happen to my worst enemy.

[...]

She said the problems started at about 12:45 a.m. Friday when she and Tudia Simpson, her cousin, went for a walk down the street. Andrews opted to stay behind, waiting on the enclosed porch, she said.

The two women hadn’t made it as far as Adams Street a block away when they heard yelling back at the house. They ran back and found a truck stopped in the street, and the occupants were taunting Andrews, calling him “faggot” and “Mercedes,” a feminization of his first name, Simpson said.

It does seem that the victim knew his attackers and that there was history there.  It also seems that, despite what some in the Waterloo police department are now saying, there was a significant amount of anti-gay bias involved.

What does this have to do with Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and the other has-beens competing with them?  We certainly don’t believe that Michele or Rick would advocate for violence of this sort against gay people, but they participate in verbal violence against LGBT people every single day.  Moreover, every Sunday in every town in Iowa, bigoted, backwards religious leaders take to the pulpit and participate in the same sort of verbal violence against gay people.  The end result of that is a climate where, sometimes, and tragically, an event like the one reported above will happen.  Political and religious leaders who daily demonize an entire minority population help create the environment where, once in a while, a young guy will get beaten to death while his attackers call him a “faggot.”  It’s truly perverted and sick that these politicians and pastors do this while claiming to defend “traditional family values.”  But then again, it’s nothing new:  conservative religious movements over the course of history have always had the most blood on their hands.

The good news is that the anti-gay beliefs of Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and their ideological cohorts at hate groups like the Family Research Council and the American Family Association, are no longer socially acceptable; the majority of the population finds them abhorrent.  But we’ve still got a ways to go before people like that are remembered, simply and disdainfully, like the slaveowners of old, as a stain on America’s history.  That time will come, but until then, light a candle for Marcellus and speak out loudly every time an anti-gay politician or a yokel pastor injects hate into the discourse.

Every time a homosexual leaves a comment on a blog, Bubba, the guardian angel of wingnuts, gets punched in the gonads. Or something like that.  The extraordinary Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association hate group has been doing a multi-part series on how gay people are the actual perpetrators of hate and hate crimes.  Reading it is the literary equivalent of watching a bumblebee slam its body into a window repeatedly, never learning anything new, looking dumber and dumber as it hits the window, backs off disoriented, flies around for a second and then plows headfirst into the window again.  In short, it’s sort of a joy to watch, if you’re into that sort of thing.

David Badash points out Part 8 of Bryan’s butthurt manifesto, where he uses a list of comments left by gays in the aftermath of Prop 8′s passage to prove that gays are the ones committing hate crimes.  First off, he calls us “Christophobic gay activists,” which I find particularly funny, as it’s yet another example of the Religious Right trying to co-opt our language, turn it around and use it for their own purposes — and it falls flat.  Fischer even tries to use his own version of the word “wingnut” to describe us.  This is enjoyable because several figures on the Right have been trying over the last couple of years to advance the idea that WE are the real haters, WE are the real wingnuts, and again, with Fischer, that WE are the ones committing hate crimes.  The reason it’s enjoyable is because there’s literally no evidence that their impotent, dishonest attempts to recapture the conversation are gaining any traction with human beings who are literate.  And we go back to the bumblebee analogy, except that the window represents reality, and no matter how many times Bryan and Porno Pete and whoever else slam their buzzing wingnut bodies up against that glass, they’re just not going to break through into reality or relevance.

Or, to make another analogy, the other night, a friend’s dog was trying, in vain, to get me to throw his ball in the backyard three hundred times or so, and I was tired and Play Time Was Over, so I just sat there as this dog would come up to my chair, plop the ball down next to me, watch it roll off and back into the yard, chase it to where it landed, bring it back, plop it in my lap, ball rolls off…this went on for a good ten minutes.  We laughed and laughed and laughed.  Of course, the dog was cute and Bryan Fischer is decidedly not.

Anyway, here are the “hate crimes” that some mean terrible gays committed either with their actual voices or on the internet.  All of these comments are just as bad as tradition-minded people, young and old, bullying, beating and bloodying gay teens, sometimes assaulting them, sometimes driving them to suicide.  We know that they’re just as bad, because fundamentalist Christians are Professional Victims above all else.  The gruesome list:

“You’re dead. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon … you’re dead.”

“I’m a gay guy who owns guns, and he’s my next target”

“I will kill you and your family.”

“Oh my G**, This woman is so f?—?ing stupid. Someone please shoot her in the head, again and again. And again.”

“I’m going to kill the pastor.”

“We’re going to kill you.”

“I warn you, I know how to kill, I’m an ex-?special forces person.”

“Get ready for retribution all you bigots.”

Burn their f?—?ing churches to the ground, and then tax the charred timbers.”

“I will kill you and your family.”

“If I had a gun I would have gunned you down along with each and every other supporter.”

“Keep letting [the pastor] preach hate and he’ll be sorry.”

“You better stay off the olympic peninsula. . it’s a very dangerous place filled with people who hate racists, gay bashers and anyone who doesn’t believe in equality. fair is fair.”

“If Larry Stickney can do ‘legal’ things that harm OUR family, why can’t we go to Arlington,WA to harm his family?”

“I advocate using violence against the property of ALL of those who are working tirelessly toHURT my family; starting with churches and government property. Government is enabling a vote on whether or not I ‘should be allowed’ to see my husband while he is dying in the hospital?—?any NORMAL man would be driven to get a gun and kill those who tried such evil cruelty against his loved ones.”

“I wanna fight you. I wanna fight you right now.”

“Throw Rocks Here” (sign with arrow pointing to pastor’s head)

“You guys deserve to die” (uttered during a physical attack)

“I’ll bust your cap.”

“You’re on my block now, bro. [If] you guys don’t leave within 20 minutes, there’s gonna be some problems.… I’m telling you right now, 20 minutes.”

“[I’ll] see you in my trunk.”

“I’m going to give them something to be f?–?ing scared of.…I’m a radical who is now on a

mission to make them all pay for what they’ve done.”

“STUPID MOTHER F*****. MAKE A DONATION Like that AND YOU ARE LISTED.”

“YOU LOST!!!!!!! Hahahahahahahahahaha Get ready for retribution all you bigots!!!!!!” (email sent within hours of Supreme Court’s decision in Doe v. Reed)

“You conservative Christians are f****** poison.”

“Can someone in CA please go burn down the Mormon temples there, PLEASE. I mean seriously. DO IT.”

“F*** you Mormons. Yeah you heard me. F*** you. F*** you and your narrow minded hypocritical a****. F*** you for putting money into taking away a persons right.…”

“As far as mormons and catholics…I warn them to watch their backs.”

“Oh Mormons, go f*** yourselves!” (sung to cheering crowds at same-?sex marriage demonstrations)

“The Mormon church (just like most churches) is a cesspool of filth. It is a breeding ground for oppression of all sorts and needs to be confronted, attacked, subverted and destroyed.”

“I fully support violence against churches who are politically-?active as anti-?gay .…”

“If you were afraid that your kids learning about homosexuals would corrupt them, you have no IDEA what I’m going to do to them.”

Okay, now TO BE CLEAR:  Any comment left on this blog which ever threatens violence against any person, or type of person, or church, or anything else, will result in a mindblowingly fast application of the ban-hammer.  That crap is not welcome here.  Luckily, our readers don’t really tend to fly off the handle like that.

My thing, though, is that we know that fundamentalist, theocratic trolls aren’t victims of hate crimes in this country, like ever.  So, we can have an argument over whether it’s appropriate to blow off steam in this way in anonymous internet comments — I would suggest that it is not — but the real world application is that it’s still our side which has to deal with a bodycount inflicted by perpetrators and students of the fundamentalist wingnut worldview.

And of course, it’s not like these isolated examples of mean comments from gays are unique to our side.  Indeed, as David points out, more hate and violence are spewed in a single day of posting on Michelle Malkin’s blog or Free Republic than has come from gays in the entire past several years.  And I will also second David’s suggestion that the fact that Bryan Fischer is having to use blog comments to find evidence of a Wave Of Anti-Christian Hate Crimes is sad, pathetic and freakish to watch [my words, not David's].  But as I said, it’s enjoyable because, like the bumblebee, Bryan is just repeatedly slamming against that window, hoping for a different result each time, and his entire side is getting weaker and more disoriented in the process.

So we shake our heads and watch and marvel at the variance in brain capacity and function throughout the animal kingdom.

It’s time for an afternoon game, everybody!  Which one of these things is the DIFFERENT one?

1.  A couple of weeks ago, a gay couple was walking hand in hand in Portland when they were assaulted by several men for being gay.  Even in Portland.

2.  A ring of assailants tortured three men in the Bronx last fall, simply for being gay.  They “sodomized, burned and whipped” them, according to the New York Times.  City council member Christine Quinn said it was one of the worst hate crimes she had ever encountered.

3.  In 2009, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, aged 11, hung himself after being bullied for being gay.  In September of 2010 at least nine young people took their lives due to bullying over their actual or perceived sexuality.

4.  In 1999, Matthew Shepard was beaten, brutalized, hung on a fence and left to die over his sexuality.  [Yes, according to all reasonable authorities, it was because of his sexuality.  There is no debate on this.]  The brutality of the attack captivated the nation and was perhaps the first anti-gay hate crime to receive such attention.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the last, as there are lists upon lists of LGBT people around the world being beaten, maimed and killed simply for who they are.

5.  Peter LaBarbera is bitching because a gay person took a big piece of paper from a gay-hating wingnut and TORE IT UP!  That was the wingnut’s big piece of paper!  He wrote the big, stupid, hard words on it all by his-self!   HATE CRIME!

It’s Bryan Fischer time, so turn of your brain, because Bryan turned his off years ago.  Bryan starts a new column about DADT repeal — yes, wingnuts are still crying about it — suggesting that, now that gays can serve openly, wingnuts like Bryan, but who happen to be in the military, are going to become victims of “hate crimes” at the hands of gay soldiers:

Get ready for an entire spate of hate crimes in the U.S. military, perpetrated by homosexual activists against servicemembers, especially officers, who have deeply held religious convictions about the acceptability of homosexual behavior.

Wait, does he think gay soldiers are going to maim and kill straight soldiers? Is this really what he’s going with?

I received a communique from a career United States Air Force officer, a man who has been an officer for 19 years. He understandably wants his identity to be protected so that he can finish his military career without himself becoming the victim of a hate crime perpetrated by homosexuals.

If that nineteen-year officer is really so terrified that he needs his anonymity protected, I’m more worried about him being able to finish the day without soiling his britches after being attacked by his own shadow.

Says this experienced officer, based on the training he was just recently subjected to:

“Homosexuals are now a protected class of people in the Air Force. Any form of discrimination against them — even an objection to the sexual lifestyle or behavior — is now taboo and will be severely punished.”

Severe punishment for merely expressing reservations about the normalcy of homosexual behavior? Can you say “hate crime?” I certainly can.

Of course you can, Bryan, but like most wingnuts, you don’t speak English very well, and your grasp of words’ actual definitions is wanting.

“Dialog (sic) of any dissenters during the training was noticeably absent because they feared how their objections might be view by the senior leaders in the room…who control future jobs and promotions. The direction from the lawyers and senior officers in the room was clearly vocalized: adhere to the new policy or you will be punished.” That’s the very definition of a hate crime.

No, it isn’t. You actually have to be threatening the well-being of someone. Simply wingnutting your paws together and stomping around saying your religion makes you scared of gayness doesn’t count.

The fact that this hate-crime threat intimidated these officers into silence became clear based on what happened after the officers – who uttered not a peep of protest in the training sessions – were free from the constraints of the training room. They “spent considerable time discussing the indoctrination, the double standards, and the problems we’ll face in the future.” In other words, when they could speak freely without worrying about becoming the victim of a hate crime, they expressed all kinds of problems with the change in policy.

So, some poorly constituted officers ran away to cry about gays together and…yeah, I’m still not seeing the hate crime. Remember when Sarah Palin started emanating things from her mouth about “blood libel,” completely unaware of the definition of the term? This is like that.

The officer who wrote to me went on to explain that there was “absolutely no discussion about the right of personnel to be free from unwanted sexual attraction…the guy who asks me out on a date Monday afternoon will be granted the right to shower with me on Tuesday morning…While there is currently some leeway for heterosexuals to object to intimate quarters with homosexuals…senior leaders in the room made it clear that such objections will not be tolerated for long.”

Oh, my. Part of the reason wingnuts are so afraid of gay men is that they’ve been taught such silly lies about us. There is no gay man I have ever met who would ever ask Bryan Fischer on a date, and considering the kind of people who would listen to his program or read his words without laughing, that officer can rest assured that there is nothing sexual about him, to anyone. Also, gay men don’t tend to ask guys out who aren’t either definitely gay or have given us a good reason to believe that they are gay. It’s sort of…yeah, I know! I can’t believe I’m having to rebut such childish stupidity either, you guys.

And the campaign of intimidation is working. “I don’t know of a single officer who is willing to buck the system and oppose the policy…The senior officers shrug their shoulders and say, ‘I’m not about to let this destroy my career and result in the loss of my well-being and pension.’

[...]

Hmmm. “Destroy career…loss of pension…sacrifice my career.” All because of prejudice against one’s religion. Hate Crimes R-Us.

No, it has nothing to do with your religion. Christianity is very much allowed, will continue to be allowed, etc. Of course, most Christians aren’t buck-toothed, mouth-breathing bigots like Bryan Fischer and his Air Force Officer penpal, but idiots slip through every crack and infest us all, so it’s unfortunate but unsurprising that there are a few in the military, bothering everyone.

This officer does not think that things will stop here. He predicts, as I have from the beginning, that we will soon see a “barrage of lawsuits arguing in favor of homosexual military spouses.”

And this is a hate crime, because…and yeah, the gay spouse thing will have to be dealt with, especially once DOMA is defeated. It’s kind of part of the idea of “equality.” I love how wingnuts always talk about these things as if they’re a secret nobody knows yet.

Bottom line: when it comes to hate crimes, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Homosexual activists have a cudgel in hand, and they’re coming after you.

As that’s the end of the article, I assume that after hitting “publish,” Bryan and his Air Force friend immediately ran under their beds to hide from gays, and haven’t been seen since. It’s okay, guys. You can come out now.