A woman was raped in San Francisco the other day, but no doubt she got what’s coming to her. After all she lives in a state where lesbians aren’t considered full citizens anymore, not like us god fearing heterosexuals, and besides, she had the audacity to place one of those rainbow stickers on her car.
SAN FRANCISCO – A woman in the San Francisco Bay area was jumped by four men, taunted for being a lesbian, repeatedly raped and left naked outside an abandoned apartment building, authorities said Monday.
Detectives say the 28-year-old victim was attacked Dec. 13 after she got out of her car, which bore a rainbow gay pride sticker. The men, who ranged from their late teens to their 30s, made comments indicating they knew her sexual orientation, said Richmond police Lt. Mark Gagan.
“It just pushes it beyond fathomable,” he said. “The level of trauma — physical and emotional — this victim has suffered is extreme.”[…]
Gay rights advocates note that hate crimes based on sexual orientation have increased nationwide as of late. There were 1,415 such crimes in 2006 and 1,460 in 2007, both times making up about 16 percent of the total, according to the FBI.
Avy Skolnik, a coordinator with the New York-based National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, noted that gay, lesbian and transgender crime victims may be more reluctant than heterosexual victims to contact police.
“Assailants target LGBT people of all gender identities with sexual assault,” he said. “Such targeting is one of the most cruel, dehumanizing and violent forms of hate violence that our communities experience.”
Now rape is a horrible crime no matter what one’s gender or sexual orientation, but after reading the details of the MsNBC report it seems pretty clear that this woman was targeted specifically because she was openly gay. That is a hate crime, pure and simple. And it’s not hard to speculate that if this can happen to someone in the most gay friendly city in America, it is likely happening everyday across America in other cities and towns, large and small, but likely without the local police taking it seriously as a crime intended to terrorize the gay community.
Indeed, there is evidence that hate crimes under reported, and hate crime against gays, lebians and transgendered persons especially so because many state statutes in many states do not include sexual orientation as a category in their definition of what constitutes a hate crime.
Nor is it much of a surprise that this young woman was selected for this brutal rape by her attackers because she is a lesbian, even though she does lives in a “gay friendly” city. After the recent demonization campaign against gay marriage in California run by the supporters of Proposition 8, I’d have been surprised if hate crimes against gays and lesbians had not increased. Words have consequences, and hateful words all the moreso. I’m willing to bet that after “Prop Hate” passed a lot more homophobic bigots suddenly felt that their prejudices were justified and legitimized because a majority of their fellow citizens voted with them to their deny fellow human beings the full range of human rights under the law. And no doubt a certain subset of those bigots became emboldened to act upon their feelings of anger and rage with violence directed against LGBT individuals whenever the opportunity arose.
So this Christmas season, whether or not you are a Christian, please try to remember that the essential message of Jesus was one of inclusion, not division, acceptance, not judgment, love, not hate. Especially try to remember this if you are one of those people who harbor any ill feelings against our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered brothers and sisters (for our brothers and sisters they truly are). It’s a message worth remembering at a time when we speak about peace and good will on earth, yet ugly vicious crimes like the one in San Francisco still occur in our nation on a daily basis. Hatred of anyone should not be considered a virtue. And it is up to those of us who recognize the humanity of all humankind to stand up against those who have failed to learn this lesson.
