There Is A Difference

I vaguely remember hearing whispers of a young man being left to die on a fence in a far away land called "Laramie". I knew only 2 things about it: 1.) He was attacked for being gay 2.) He must have been terrified.

I was 14. I tried not to think about it a whole lot, but I found it fascinating.

My understanding of what is was to be gay was shaped by many many events and fragments of information all coming in during different developmental stages, many of them very skewed. Here's a short list of distinct thoughts I had growing up:

1. kd lang is a lesbian and it cost her her career.
2. My uncle is gay and he's a jerk, I wonder if that's causation or coincidence.
3. The lead singer of Queen was gay and now he's dead.
4. Melissa Etheridge is a lesbian??? (and she has children ... that's kind of cool )
5. Gay men get AIDS and then they die
6. Ellen Degeneres just said she's gay ... she seems pretty normal ...
7. Being gay is perhaps acceptable but not ideal
8. Ellen is no longer on TV
9. Melissa Etheridge lost her children in a custody battle
10. Matthew Shepard was murdered because he was gay - if you're gay people will want to kill you.
    

It would be another 5 1/2 years, almost to the day before I saw Jennifer Finney Boylan on Oprah and realized I was gay. I cried. Perhaps I'll post the whole coming out story sometime, but now is not that time.

I'm 25 now. I've been out for 6 years. In general my life is good.

What happened to Matthew Shepard was a hate crime. According to the FBI (under reporting is huge factor here) Washington state had a total of 195 incidences in which a hate crime was commited in 2007. 39 were anti-gay crimes, which translates to 20%.

On Friday, the Senate approved an expansion of Federal Hate Crimes Legislation. If you are unfamiliar with this legislation it essentially extends federal protections granted under the hate crimes law of 1968 to include people who are physically attacked because of their gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. But today, the Senate passed an amendment to the Act that would allow the death penalty to be applied in hate crimes cases under some circumstances. And it seems unlikely it will pass.

Some people believe that hate crimes deserve no "special" legislation. My father has told me that if I'm murdered he'll be just as pissed regardless of the reason. Many people believe that a crime is a crime.

I assure you, there is a difference. That difference resonates like tuning fork in every fiber of my being. But don't take my word for it. According to a study by Dr. Herek "crime-related psychological problems dropped substantially among survivors of non-bias crimes within approximately two years after the crime. Hate crime victims, however, continued to have higher levels of depression, stress, and anger for as long as 5 years after their victimization occurred.""

These crimes are not as random as they may seem. Society programs fear and prejudice in subtle and not so subtle ways.

And "Jason D" sums it up quite nicely in his comment on BTB:

"Someone writing “My Town is Cool” on the side of a business in spray paint is just committing one crime - vandalism.

But someone writing “Jews Must Die” on the side of a synagogue in spray paint is committing two crimes. They are using vandalism to commit harassment and intimidation. Picture this synagogue in a predominantly jewish community and it’s not hard to see that harassment is part of the equation.

...

Bigots often intimidate and harass their victims and community with petty crimes, the kind of thing that serves no jail time. Fines, slap on the wrist, and they’re out the door to commit another misdemeanor to harass and intimidate their victims. This becomes a campaign of harassment, often with the victim terrorized and finally murdered. "