Anti-LGBT Violence Worsens in NYC

The people saying you should react with violence is concerning. That won't do anything but fuel their hatred and probably cause them to hate GLBT people even more.

Sorry Javier, you're obviously heterophobic hater by calling names just for pointing out the obvious. New York is a city of 10 million, with a significantly higher percentage of gays than most populations. So 5 murders of gays in a year in a general population pool of 10 million, knowing that general population had a higher percentage of gays, is just not something to get up in arms about, in fact it's really a low figure that would more aptly represent huge tolerance given gay's presence and high profile activity in New York. And you can bet those 5 gays where all the gays in New York that got killed, not one left out, because the known gay agenda tactic of choice is to call every gay murdered a hate crime. This is absurd!!

Haterosexuals are troublemakers. PJR is one of them.

Two facts to consider: First The Advocate is basically lying with statistics trying to trump up drama. The stats reported are basically so low that even one additional crime shoots the percentage up by a whole lot. Total numbers is amazingly low, but yet The Advocate reports the percentage or percentage increase to make it seem like there's some huge problem. Second, even these small total increases are for sure due to more aggressive reporting, whereby basically anyone that's gay that suffers a crime, well that gets called and added up as a hate crime! If you're gay and get mugged or murdered, they did it because you where gay first, and for stealing the person's money or such second! Ridiculous!

When you visit NYC, I think it's time to bring your bats and guns and take care of bigots like these. Just one good "hospitalization-required" ass-whooping from a set of anonymous gays and shit like this would stop real fast! Fight fire w/ fire and harassment with harassment.

The point here is to STAND UP in the face of bigotry. Martin Luther King KNEW, when he marched into Selma, what kind of reception he would get. Rosa Parks KNEW, in refusing to give up her seat on the bus, that she would be arrested. We ARE in the right and that's why, ultimately, we'll prevail. In the meantime, DEFEND yourselves! If someone takes a swing at you; PUT HIS ASS IN THE DIRT!! Put those muscles we've been building up at the gym to work! If someone swings at me, he better make it good; because I'll stomp him into the ground!

Joe - in order to make real, concrete change, we have to put a target on ourselves and fight for our rights not just for a week or even a month but for years at a time and probably even decades. It takes courage to bring a real fight to our government that exposes us to potential harm and violence. As long as we avoid this fight, we will live another 40 years of small actions and achieve a goose egg in considerable Federal rights such as the Hate Crimes bill and ENDA. We look back to a time when African-Americans pushed the envelope of peaceful non-violent acts of civil disobedience during the mid 1950's through the 1960's, and only then did they finally crack the wall blocking them from true freedom, equality and justice. This is the same road that we must take as well, as LGBT people.

Travis, I agree, but legislative equality is a major precursor to "true equality," as you call it. The two also go hand in hand, however. Honestly, I don't think we'll change religion in any meaningful fashion, at least not the fundamentalist religions, which will always have a steady supply of the insecure and anxious people who are attracted to them. I think a better course of action would be to strengthen separation of church and state, both legally and socially, and gradually disempower the churches. I know this is controversial, and I'll probably upset a lot of people, for which I'm sorry, but I really don't think gay people should try to be Christian. However you choose to interpret passages in Leviticus or Romans, they will always be there and will always justify homophobia for many, as they have for all of Christianity's history. If you seek faith, try deism, Wicca, Buddhism or another belief system that doesn't require you to constantly defend yourself to people who hate you.

Joe, we have to do a better job of defining our goal. Do we only want legislative equality? Or do we want true equality? We spend millions of dollars every year on lobbying, legal action, and protests. None of these get rid of religious conviction that homosexuality is wrong, which is what inspires these hate crimes. Laws won't stop hate crimes, just punish them more severely. We have to redefine religion so that we awaken to reason and stop allowing a bunch of ancient books to define truth, morality, and the rules by which we live. Religion has made gay wrong, and until we redefine it, we will still be attacked, ashamed gay teens will still commit suicide, and we will still be wrong. Whether we have rights or not.

A friend of a friend was recently gaybashed in NYC as well. The overwhelming majority of people who commit these crimes against us are trash and pathetic losers who have done nothing with their lives and will never amount to anything.