Rick Raw: Homophobia 2010–Still Rampant

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

Here we are in 2010, many years after gays living with society-wide oppression came out in the 1960s as fierce advocates for their own cause. Indeed, they have made much progress in acceptance by factions of the population.

But incredibly, in the mainstream population of the United States, there is still deeply ingrained homophobia, that has lately caused 4 suicides in 19 days of young gay boys, and a brutal gang rape and torture of 3 gay men by a gang of thugs in NYC. Justifiably, 8 men are charged with a litany of felonies and committing a hate crime, which makes the case Federal.

Ellen Degeneres was so upset by the latest gay bashing and bullying incidents she made a special PSA pleading with young gays to seek help and guidance from many organizations devoted to helping them. She said that these organizations will help them without telling their parents, if that is what they want.

She even invited them, if all else fails, to call her, and she will help each individual. Of course, Degeneres knows first hand how difficult it was growing up gay. It took her a long time to come out on her series "Ellen."

Jodie Foster led a secret life for many years until it was obvious to everyone that she was a lesbian. But she never came out willingly. She was outed when the tabloids were tipped off to her breakup with her long time significant other. It would have never mattered. Her monster talent supercedes her being gay by many times.

The school kids that committed suicide were taunted by classmates and their lives were a living hell. The schools involved did nothing to stop the bullying and harassment. Many of these kids were too afraid to tell their parents. They felt they had nowhere to turn to stop the emotional pain.

William Lucas, 15 was a freshman at Greensburgh High. He hanged himself in the Family’s barn. Someone commented on his Facebook page that "everyone at school made fun of him and he couldn’t’ take it anymore." Where was the help and support that he needed? No one came to his rescue.

Tyler Clementi, 18, was a freshman at Rutgers. His roommate suspected he was gay and started spying on him with a hidden video camera, eventually posting a video on the Internet of Tyler having sex with another man. Tyler couldn’t take the humiliation and jumped off a bridge. Another promising life gone because of homophobia.

Asher Brown was just 13 when he used his stepfather’s gun to shoot himself in the head. His parents said he had been relentlessly bullied by his schoolmates because they assumed he was gay because he was effeminate and his parents were poor and he couldn’t afford trendy clothes.

The case in NYC was one of the worst hate crimes against gays that the police had ever seen in the city. A loose-knit gang of thugs went berserk after learning that a 17-year old recruit was gay. The thugs stripped him, and beat him senseless, then sodomized him with a wooden plunger handle and a kid’s baseball bat. The torture went on for hours.

Then the gang members in a crazed frenzy of depravity grabbed a second gay teen and tortured him. The 3rd attack involved a 30-year old man who was lured to the apartment, sodomized and tortured.

Given that these thugs have less than 6th grade education and are as dumb as a box of rocks, the level of violence was shocking to the police and Mayor Bloomberg, who said, "I was sickened by the brutal nature of these crimes and saddened by the anti-gay bias that contributed to them. Hate crimes such as these strike fear into all of us."

The defeat of the appeal of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" by homophobic Republican lawmakers like John McCain, was a setback for gays in the military. It seems that when gays take 2 steps forward, bigoted factions of our society force them to take three steps back.

It’s 2010. By now our society should have come to terms with homosexuality as not being a lifestyle choice, but a genetic imperative. In other words, gays are attracted to members of the same sex just as strongly as heterosexual people are attracted to members of the opposite sex.

These latest incidents of gay bashing and bullying can not be tolerated in our country. It has to be stopped!