Contents:
- KILLG CASTS A RARE LIGHT ON GAY LIFE SUBURBIA
- GAY DJ JACE M AND SGER JOEY DIAMOND ARE “TEAR’ UP MY HEART”
KILLG CASTS A RARE LIGHT ON GAY LIFE SUBURBIA
At the gay bar, where one would expect outrage at a gay-bashg episo that the police said led to Mr. Marquez at a parkg lot near Pal Joey's last month has thrown an unwele spotlight on gay life the suburbs, a shadowy world between the pri, bravado and activism of Christopher Street Manhattan and the exuberant summer retreats on Fire Island and the advot say gay life on Long Island is often muted by half tths meant to protect double liv. Many gay men and women here are married and have children, and, like many suburban, moved to Long Island to pe the anxieti of urban bias cints have bee a rallyg cry for gay-rights groups New York Cy, they rema largely a topic of hhed nversatn here and have gone all but unreported to the police, gay-rights advot say.
Marquez, a 26-year-old ctoms agent, has roed many gay rints of Long Island. "In terms of solidary, 's the ostrich effect, " said Jam Darragh, a philosophy profsor and journalist Old Wtbury who is gay.
Few Reported AttacksThe Nass County police say there were four reported cints of anti-gay bias 1991, the same number 1990, and five 1989. The Suffolk County Police anti-bias un unted ne gay-bashg cints last year, up om four each of the two prev years. Joseph Zo, believe the figur give an accurate measure of sults and attacks agast gay people on Long part of the problem is New York State law, which do not prohib discrimatn on the basis of sexual orientatn, and leav gay people open to losg jobs and hog, said Sandy Rapp, polil director of the East End Gay Organizatn and thor of "God's Country, " a book on gay civil rights.
GAY DJ JACE M AND SGER JOEY DIAMOND ARE “TEAR’ UP MY HEART”
Rapp said, "they are unlikely to report an cint which they are intified as beg gay. "The suburbs, and pecially Long Island, like to perceive themselv as a homogeneo group, " said a salman who knew Mr. Darragh, who did not want to be intified, said he was attacked at a gay bar Suffolk last year.
Divorced and livg wh his parents, who still display his weddg picture the livg room, the man uld not brg himself to tell them he had been lured out of a gay bar and asslted. It was two days before he was able to return that time, he replayed the attack his md: the teen-ager who asked if he was gay, and then blocked the door back to the bar; the bar patrons hearg his cri and g outsi to help; iends of his attacker nng over om the gas statn next door, swgg golf clubs; the bar owner llg his ctomers si and lockg the door, and the horrifyg realizatn that one man had mistakenly been locked out and was beg hours, the man grappled wh whether to prs charg, fearful of word spreadg that he had been a gay bar. Others were equally ambivalent about prsg charg: The owner of the bar wanted to report , the man who had been locked out and battered wh golf clubs did the attack, the victim felt sgled out, intifiable as gay.