Anti-gay hate crim on the rise, FBI says, and they likely unrunt

Contents:

• GAY BASHG
• FAY SEEKS $20 LN AFTER GAY BASHG CINTS AT WASHGTON SCHOOL
• AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
• ANTI-GAY HATE CRIM FELL SLIGHTLY 2020, WHILE ANTI-TRANS CRIM ROSE, FBI SAYS
• HOW AMERI GOT PAST THE ANTI-GAY POLICS OF THE '90S
• 18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA
• MEANG OF GAY-BASHG ENGLISH
• 10 MOST WILDLY ANTI-GAY PREACHERS AMERI

GAY BASHG

A rash of laws ncerng the teachg of human sexualy school curricula, banng trans stunt athlet and strippg parents of the right to help their genr-variant children obta appropriate re have popped up numero red stat this same-sex marriage is now part of the fabric of Ameri, nservativ have chosen to explo Amerins’ unfaiary wh trans people and piggyback on parental anger over the perceived overreach of Covid-era school closur, nflatg wh an sid sense of “wokens”, the hop of fdg an electorally viable sluiceway for anti-LGBTQ+ most famo of the anti-LGBTQ+ laws is the piece of Florida legislatn banng stctn on sexual orientatn or genr inty schools between krgarten and third gra, the so-lled “don’t say gay” law. He was followed by Arizona’s ernor, Doug Ducey, who, after barrg mors om genr-affirmatn treatment, wouldn’t even state for the rerd that trans people were Florida lawmaker Michele Rayner-Goolsby, left, hugs her wife, Bian Goolsby, durg a march at cy hall St Petersburg agast the ‘don’t say gay’ bill.

Photograph: Bob Daemmrich/Zuma Wire/Rex/ShutterstockPolicians are supported the media by mentators like Tucker Carlson, who claimed “no one had heard of this trans thg four years ago”, or Charlie Kirk, channelg 1980s fears sayg “gays want to rpt your children” rejuvenated, the right wg is poised to make transphobia and homophobia rnerston of the midterms and 2024 electns, wh promis to liver “don’t say gay” legislatn stat cludg Michigan and New Perks, the print of the Fay Rearch Council, a nservative lobbyg group, veighed agast the ernors of Indiana and Utah for vetog legislatn banng trans women om participatg sports, llg the bills “timely, mastream protectns”. The Republin US reprentative Marjorie Taylor Greene vowed to troduce a feral “don’t say gay” bill if Republins w the Hoe this November, only to one-up herself days later by tweetg that for people to be pro-trans is to be pro-pedophilia.

FAY SEEKS $20 LN AFTER GAY BASHG CINTS AT WASHGTON SCHOOL

”The bs-iendly wg of the GOP that would quietly team up wh Democrats to scuttle rabidly homophobic bills is now outnumbered, and legislators a dozen or more stat that lean even farther to the right than DeSantis are takg, the Natnal Center for Lbian Rights legal director, believ Florida is the tt se for a renewed ph for an aggrsive, Christian-natnalist program.

“I’ve seen this movie before over the last 30 years: The right wg cid to target the LGBTQ muny, whether ’s around marriage or adoptn or trans kids playg sports or bathrooms, ” says the California state senator Stt Wiener, who is gay. “I thought was really important to ph back on the policy level, and to send a clear signal that California and other stat really re about the kids, ” he believ that “don’t say gay” is “patently unnstutnal” but also ntends that relyg on the judicial system to protect human rights may no longer be a sound optn.

Alabama’s laws go a b further than most: The state’s sex tn program mandat that “class mt emphasize, a factual manner and om a public health perspective, that homosexualy is not a liftyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual nduct is a crimal offense unr the laws of the state. ” Then aga, he’s hardly the bt thory when to matters of health, as Perry recently pared homosexualy to alholism: “I may have the geic dg that I’m cled to be an alholic, but I have the sire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way. In rponse to "Don't Ask Don't Tell", Amendment 2 Colorado, risg hate crim, and on-gog discrimatn agast the LGBTQ muny an timated 800, 000 to one ln people participated the March on Washgton for Lbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberatn on April 25, 1993.

AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?

"WARNING: This feature ntas language that some rears may fd nights earlier, on Tuday 6 October 1998, Matthew Shepard walked alone to a dive bar ptn, Judy and Dennis Shepard at the Matthew Shepard Foundatn Denver last weekThe openly gay Universy of Wyomg hman had jt met up wh iends to plan LGBT awarens week on the town's he uldn't persua them to jo him for a beer the Firi Lounge, the 21-year-old somehow end up chattg to two roofg workers, Rsell Henrson and Aaron McKney, both the same age as pair saw an easy mark the 5ft 2, slightly built County Sheriff Dave O'Malley, who was lead vtigator the se, says: "McKney's own statement said he and Rsell went to the bathroom at the Firi bar and they planned to act like they were gay to try to ga Matthew's nfince.

It is a momento honour not even acrd to another proment gay martyr, Harvey Milk, the San Francis polician assassated the Denver cy centre offic of the LGBT rights foundatn named after her son, Judy Shepard, 66, is fightg back predicted Friday's ceremony would probably be more emotnal for her than the funeral bee she felt so "numb" immediately after her son's source, Getty ImagImage ptn, A vigil for Shepard New York Cy 1998The origal service, amid snow flurri the fay's hometown of Casper, Wyomg, on 16 October 1998, was picketed by an anti-gay preacher om Kansas.

Reverend Fred Phelps of Wtboro Baptist Church and his flock, who clud children, held plards dbed wh homophobic slurs and shouted to mourners that the ad stunt was burng Shepard, 69, remembers law enforcement makg him wear a bullet-proof vt to step outsi the Epispal church, which had been sured by bomb-sniffg dogs. Shepard's murr stoked the perceptn of Cowboy Country and flyover stat general as a danger zone for gay at his office the cy of Cheyenne, McKney trial lawyer Dn Ctis matas was a robbery gone bad, even while he accepts sexual orientatn was a factor.

ANTI-GAY HATE CRIM FELL SLIGHTLY 2020, WHILE ANTI-TRANS CRIM ROSE, FBI SAYS

"However, McKney's own gay-bashg rhetoric damns him the ey of source, Getty ImagImage ptn, Thoands gathered outsi the US Capol for a vigil after Shepard's athDurg a police nfsn, he said he began to attack Shepard bee the stunt had put his hand on his leg durg the r ri.

" Yet another statement to police, he said Shepard simply looked like he was about to grope the jailhoe after his arrt, McKney reportedly wrote to another mate's wife: "Beg a verry [sic] dnk homofobick [sic] I flipped out and began to pistol whip the fag wh my gun, ready at hand.

"At trial, McKney's lawyers argued that Shepard had ma their client fly to a rage by touchg his the judge dismissed this "gay panic" a legal strategy - where crimal fendants s of vlent asslt argue they were provoked by an unwanted same-sex sexual advance - is still admissible all but three US stat, acrdg to the Williams Instute at UCLA School of Law.

HOW AMERI GOT PAST THE ANTI-GAY POLICS OF THE '90S

The moment was re-enacted as a climactic scene 2002 HBO movie The Laramie the angel actn, was replited two years ago Orlando, Florida, when Wtboro Baptist Church tried to dispt the funerals of gay people killed a mass shootg at the Pulse nightclub. However, Sheriff O'Malley mak clear that theory is not supported by the source, Getty ImagImage ptn, Judy Shepard (L) at the Whe Hoe 2009 for the passage of the anti-hate crim bill named after her son and a black man killed by whe supremacistsThe Old Buckhorn Bar & Parlor Laramie has a mirror pocked by a bullet hole, and walls that bristle wh mounted antelope, buffalo and patron, Jt Bmmet - who proudly scrib himself as "third class whe trash" - says US progrs on gay rights sce Shepard's ath is to be mend.

18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA

" Back at the end of the last lennium, many Wyomg apparently thought gay people were as rare on the high plas as jackalop, the state's mythil antlered ptn, (L-R) Universy of Wyomg LGBT stunts Js Fahlsg, Carlos Gonzal and Rihanna KelverShepard's murr - together wh the 2005 gay wboy love story Brokeback Mounta - helped dispel that Connolly, a Universy of Wyomg genr and women's studi lecturer, explas. She reunts facg a "horrific" backlash last year om angry voters when she troduced a gay rights source, Getty ImagImage ptn, A dirt road near where Shepard was left to dieA Democrat, she is one of a handful of female lawmakers Wyomg. In 1991, he endowed the Gay and Lbian Center at the San Francis Public Library, which would go on to bear his name when nomatn snagged on the Republin learship Congrs, then bily seekg Print Clton's impeachment over his affair wh Moni Lewsky.

Senator Jse Helms, the Senate Foreign Relatns Commtee chairman well known for his public opposn to the "homosexual liftyle" and the people he lled, Newsweek 1994, "generat" and "weak, morally sick wretch, " vowed to block the appotment. But the "Stone Age, " as Jodi Foster has lled , which gay people were seen as perverts jtifiably targeted for vlence or vective, is a none too distant a memory, and too many quarters is still extremely difficult for people -- pecially very young people -- to be out and gay whout experiencg severe social, physil, or enomic repercsns (as the documentary Bully showed this past year, se any one had any doubt), acrdg to Washgton Post-ABC News pollg, 58 percent support gay marriage, up om 41 percent 2004, while opposn has dropped om 55 to 36 percent. If Amerin views on gays have changed -- and they have, wh shockg rapidy -- that means there are a lot of people this untry who ed to hold more eply anti-gay views than they do today, and who may be ashamed of what they once thought and said what now seems a distant and unenlightened era.

MEANG OF GAY-BASHG ENGLISH

Two thirds of the change views on gay marriage om "dividuals' modifyg their views over time" and only "one-third was due to a hort succsn effect, or later horts replacg earlier on, " acrdg to soclogist Dawn Michelle Bnach, who looked to the issue a 2011 Social Science Quarterly piece. Most such people have had the privilege of a private life, where their participatn an ugly iology that dimished and damaged gay people is somethg they speak of only nversatn wh iends, or rell wh the most sanctuary of their own some people have been livg public liv a long time, and have left a very public paper trail of their exprsns of disfort and distaste. ) But wh the Supreme Court June set to renr cisns on the historic challeng to California's Proposn 8 banng same-sex marriage and the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibs feral regnn of same-sex marriag permted by the stat, 's worth takg a look at how policians have publicly "evolved, " to e Obama's term, on the qutn of gay rights Ameri -- and what, precisely, they have been evolvg the dmbeat of shiftg views on gay marriage picked up March, thanks to the impendg oral arguments the Supreme Court s, many ways was Hagel's January nomatn to be fense secretary that began the nversatn, and which gets at the re of the money flood to Obama's mpaign ffers after he me out for gay marriage May 2012 -- but gays and lbians were also some of his stnched backers before that.

A CNN analysis found one 16 of his bundlers -- high dollar fundraisers -- the first quarter of 2012 was gay; the Advote timated the number at closer to one five mid-2011, and the Washgton Post at one six May voters went on to reveal they had some ser clout at the polls November. Obama's more than three-to-one edge ex polls among the 5 percent of voters who intified themselv as gay, lbian or bisexual was more than enough to give him the ultimate advantage, " acrdg to a New York Tim post-electn report analyzg the impact of the GLB vote (no T measured).

The fact that Obama was able to w reelectn after publicly backg gay marriage -- and the tremendo bt he owed gay voters and polil fundraisers -- helped change dynamics Washgton around gay issu the immediate post-electn particular, gay lears who'd b their tongu advance of the electn felt newly empowered to ph back at the print, and the Hagel nomatn provid an early opportuny to do that. His views, so mon 1998, were seen as bluntly prejudiced 2013 -- and as such, anathema to both gay nservativ eager to tar a potential Obama nomee, and gay liberals furiated that the reward for their electoral support would be the nomatn of someone who talked like that about regnized the severy of the suatn and apologized before he was even nomated. Senate me out support of same-sex marriage, acrdg to data llected by Wonkblog's Dylan Matthews: Dean Barkley of Mnota, who replaced Pl Wellstone after his ath 2002 and served a grand total of 61 days startg 2012, that began to shift -- thanks large measure to Joe vice print got the ball rollg on the new round of gay-marriage pronouncements on May 6.

10 MOST WILDLY ANTI-GAY PREACHERS AMERI

"[A]s many of my gay and lbian iends, lleagu and staff embrace long term mted relatnships, I fd myself unable to look them the eye whout hontly nontg this unfortable equaly, " observed Senator Claire McCaskill a Tumblr 1990s are over. His party even won seats the Hoe and Senate the same year his sndal domated the news, as the public fied polil predictns and turned agast the moralists stead of the man they the dmbeat of shiftg views of gay marriage ntu, each voice affirms gay people as part of the Amerin fay, and each senator hly legimiz gay Amerins as he or she repudiat past views or clarifi new on.

Takg a page om the anti-gay fabulist Stt Lively (see Abidg Tth Mistri, above), Fischer claimed a blog post last May 27 that “[h]omosexualy gave Adolph Hler, and homosexuals the ary gave the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war mache and 6 ln ad Jews. A one-time reporter for the nservative Washgton Tim, LaBarbera has been an energetic mpaigner agast “the radil homosexual agenda” sce at least 1993, when he lnched The Lambda Report, which claimed to do first-hand reportg to expose s gay enemi.