Come Out Against LGBT Hate Crimes
By Tanya Paperny - Oct 10th, 2008 at 1:28 pmThis Saturday is the 20th annual National Coming Out Day.
The day was founded in honor of 1987’s Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Half a million people demanded government action in the fight against AIDS and scorned the Supreme Court’s 1986 decision to uphold anti-sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick.
It seems fitting to mark this day in Washington DC since the District has recently seen a spike in anti-gay violence (warning, frightening pictures behind the link) as well as the reformation of Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV), a group that was active in the 1990s and established a hotline to report gay-bashing, provided sensitivity training for cops, and published an annual hate crime report.
GLOV, which disbanded in 1999, has met twice in light of the death of Tony R. Hunter, who was fatally beaten in front of a popular queer bar in the District in September. Community organizers are planning to bring back some programs held in the 1990s, so GLOV will serve as a watchdog group and will raise awareness of the increase in bias crimes against the LGBT community.
There is also anecdotal evidence of a nationwide pattern of anti-LGBT violence. (The FBI has not released its compilation of hate crime data since 2006.) Miriam at Feministing points to a statistic showing that around 15 percent of hate crimes are LGBT-related nationally, while in DC, it’s closer to 60 percent.
Some ideas of how you can mark National Coming Out Day can be found here, including the suggestion to recruit a straight friend (no, not that kind of recruitment, but the kind where you get them to be active as outspoken allies!). It’s seriously upsetting to see these things happening in my community (and to hear about it happening to a good friend in California), so I hope that on Saturday we can come together in a safe and empowering way.
You can attend one of the many events taking place across the country and add your own event to the list.
“no, not that kind of recruitment,”
Oy. Cheese.
It’s honestly good to know the legal definition of a hate crime. Even Joel was going to dismiss what happened to him, and I’m glad he didn’t. I get the feeling that not enough people are aware that they can take lawful action against the people who do this kind of BS.
I’m going to go on craigslist and see if anyone needs an ally.
October 10th, 2008 at 3:07 pm[...] The protest was also used to raise money for Gays and Lesbians Opposed to Violence, a DC-area group I wrote about here. [...]
March 31st, 2009 at 2:01 pm