Absolutely shocking.

[logansrogue]

Go here. Tell people. Know about Aaron Hall. This must never happen. Be aware. Tell others. Please, please tell others.

The Original news article from Bloomington Alternative

It's things like this that remind people that aren't in the situation (either gay/bi/les/transgen or know someone that is) that equality is a long, long way off. Just because there are gay characters on TV sitcoms doesn't mean the fight is over yet.

Comments

[angriest.livejournal.com]

That's very horrific, and of course brings up the ugly debate over hate crime legislation again.

I've yet to have a satisfactory explanation as to why hate crime laws are needed, as if beating someone to death because they are gay/bi/black/whatever is in some way worse than beating someone to death for any other reason. You're still beating someone to death.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

I've thought a lot about what you've said here, and perhaps once upon a time I would have agreed with this.

The thing is, these crimes don't occur in a vaccuum. Beating someone to death is awful, but beating someone to death for simply being different has repercussions that the person charged must *also* pay for. They're not just hurting or killing someone - they're damaging society.

I don't think I can tell you how it makes me feel when I hear about something like this. How I feel fear, deep, terrible fear in exposing my sexuality to the world at large. I *fear* falling in love with a woman because of all the trouble it could bring me. I'm lucky enough to be born with a sexuality that means I'd be equally as happy with a man. I can hide it. Not everyone can.

Homophobia is a real and terrible thing, and when it goes to the sort of extremes where it's used as a justification in killing people - it turns my stomach. Things need to be done. That's what I'm calling attention to.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

The big problem is that once you sign off on hate crime legislation you are effectively outlawing someone's *thoughts* rather than simply their *actions*. And that's a very dangerously slippery slope to wobble at the top of.

I worry that when people start arguing for hate crime laws they're not working to prevent crime, they're playing politics over the act of crime. What happened to the guy whose story you linked to is horrific and tragic, but would it have been any less tragic if he had been beaten to death for another reason? He was still beaten and he still died. His family and friends will still feel that loss.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

No, no no. People are allowed to be as bigoted as they want to be. The moment they start acting out on those beliefs and impacting on other people's lives, that's when it becomes a hate crime, that's what is being legislated against. Not people's thoughts. I think that distinction is pretty clear. I see no slippery slope there.

More people are affected by hate crimes than you could possibly imagine. They send out a powerful message that damages society as a whole. You might not understand how it feels to have your social group targetted like that, but trust me, it can be very damaging.

I agree that care must be taken in formulating laws against hate crime. You don't want to jail a person for saying on their blog "I hate gays and think they should be beaten up" and they have never even TOUCHED a gay person.

But saying that bashing someone because of being different is no worse than bashing someone cause they owe you money - that's missing some very important issues and shows a bit of a lack of understanding for those the crimes are targetted against. You can worry about politics all you want but this isn't politics with me and it's not politics to the families of people that have been killed for being different.

So I'm sorry if I can't look at this as a political thing with you - it's too loaded an issue for me and I feel far too strongly about it. It kinda upsets me to talk about it, really, which is stupid - it might be cause I'm all hormonal at the moment, who knows.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I can stop talking about it. I obviously don't want you to be upset!!

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

I just don't want to get all psycho-arguey and say something stupid. LOL! You're a dear! *hugs you*

[angriest.livejournal.com]

*is hugged*

[http://users.livejournal.com/lothar_/]

Why is the Internet telling me something I should have learned from CNN or the NY Times? Anyway, I'm spreading this.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Thank you. *hugs*

[rantmaster.livejournal.com]

I read enough of this to know that I can't read any more of it right now. My head hurts. I'm not ignoreing, but....blah. I need to hurt something.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I read it, passed on the information. There's not a lot I can do, being in Australia, other than to keep people aware of the problem.

[rantmaster.livejournal.com]

American society sucks in a lot of ways. *sigh* Is Australia any better? Maybe I could migrate.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Uhm, marginally. There's quite a bit of racism here in certain circles. In the more cosmopolitan places it's very nice and all mixed up culturally. Because I'm not openly gay (it's not apparent I'm bisexual unless I say something which I usually don't have reason to) I'm not entirely sure of the attitudes. Let's put it this way - I'd be scared to mention it. The actual gay scene is small in Perth, bigger in Sydney and Melbourne. I know I haven't heard of gay people being bashed like that here, but who knows.