Hate Crime No Hate Crime

Via Big Gay News:

A 15-year-old from Portage Michigan was beaten by two other teenagers for being gay. According to a Chicago Tribune article, the two boys were charged as juveniles with aggravated assault and one of them has pleaded guilty. From the Tribune:

Although the victim's mother calls it a hate crime, officials say the closest thing under state statute -- an ethnic-intimidation law -- requires attacks to be motivated by race, color, religion, gender or national origin but not sexual orientation.

Lynette Rocha said Friday she will campaign to get the law changed following the attack on her son, Steven Harmon.

"I don't care what it takes or where I have to go," Rocha said, fighting back tears.

The boy said the teens who attacked him used gay slurs as they beat him, giving him a fractured cheek bone, two black eyes and other injuries on his head, face, and neck. The 15 and 16-year old attackers won't be charged with a hate crime because Michigan doesn't have hate-crime laws to protect LGBT people.

And some people are still arguing that hate crimes laws would infringe on their free practice of religion. No, hate crimes laws are not there to stop preachers from spewing hate from their pulpits. Hate crimes laws are there to stop our children from being terrorized like this kid was.

Monday's Minute of Hate

Via Big Gay News:

Turns out you don't necessarily have to be gay to be gay bashed. Hate crime charges have been filed against an 18-year-old man in Seattle after he allegedly attacked another man on a bus.

From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

Abiazzizi I. Idris has been charged with second-degree attempted robbery and malicious harassment, the state's hate crime statute, in the March 10 attack.

In court documents, police claim Idris was riding on a Metro coach near the 9000 block of Rainier Avenue South when he slapped the man in the back of the head. He then allegedly asked, using a slur, if he was homosexual.

The man disembarked the bus moments later, followed by Idris and an associate. Police say Idris again approached him, telling the man that homosexuality violates his religion.

Confronted by Idris, the man again said he was not gay. Idris then, police assert, "grabbed the victim around his neck and said 'Give me $10 and your cell phone and I'll let you go.'"

The actual sexual orientation of the victim wasn't stated in the article. But in Washington malicious harassment can be charged based on the assailant's perception of the victim's sexual orientation. Lucky for this victim, the owner of a grocery store saw what was going on and called police. 

And some people think hate-crimes legislation is just for picking on those poor Christians.