His Name Was Andrew

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MrsSpringsteen

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DETROIT - Andrew Anthos had many passions in life, including old movies, legendary Hollywood screen sirens and a 20-year campaign to illuminate the state Capitol dome in red, white and blue one night a year. While he never hid that he was gay, he was no gay rights activist.

But after dying of injuries suffered last month in what witnesses portrayed as a gay-bashing, the 72-year-old Anthos has become a powerful symbol in a campaign to amend federal and state hate-crime laws to protect gays.

According to police and family members, the Detroit man was riding a city bus home from the library on Feb. 13, singing along quietly to Spanish music on his headphones. A young man asked him if he was gay and called him a “faggot.” Anthos ignored him.

The man followed Anthos off the bus, confronting him again. Anthos told the man he was gay as he helped a wheelchair-bound friend who was stuck in a snowbank, witnesses said. The man struck Anthos in the back of the head with a pipe, stood over him as he lay on the ground and ran off after Anthos’ friend yelled for him to stop.

Anthos fell into a coma on Feb. 21 and died two days later.
 
I saw this on the news. It's just so scary that there are people out there who do things like this. :(
 
This was on the news a lot around here (I live 20 minutes outside of Detroit) after it happened. I hope they catch that fucking bastard and throw his sorry ass in jail for the rest of his life. As far as I know they haven't found him yet. I can't believe any human being could be that low and despicable. :sad: :mad:
 
One thing that really sticks with me is that he called him the F word. How many steps is it from that word to such an unspeakable act? Perhaps not as many as some people would like to think.
 
MrsSpringsteen said:
One thing that really sticks with me is that he called him the F word. How many steps is it from that word to such an unspeakable act? Perhaps not as many as some people would like to think.
As many steps as ****** is from the lynch mob,
 
A_Wanderer said:
As many steps as ****** is from the lynch mob,

Agreed. Putting words - insulting words, granted - on the same moral plane as beating someone to death is utterly absurd.
 
Do you think the government plays a role in legitimizing this kind of behavior, by treating gays different than straights under the law? If the state continues to treat a gay man as "less" than a straight man, should we be shocked that citizens would hold this view also, that a gay man is less human, not a man but simply "a faggot"?

Not defending this bastard in the least, or making an excuse...
 
The government is a body of people representative of the population, their homophobia follows public attitudes and doesn't lead it.
 
No it isn't, hate crime laws wouldn't have stopped this, it would only make the punishment wrong; what happened was wrong but making a crime commited against another human being somehow worse because of their race or orientation is a form of thought policing.
 
So you don't think hate-crime laws are effective? You're right, perhaps wouldn't have happened. But I think if the government declares the gay community a protected class of citizens, that would encourage more tolerance.
 
Or maybe it would just prove everything that the bigots have been saying all these years and add fuel to the fire. Equal rights is not about special rights.
 
Good point. I do believe that a life is a life is a life. However, I think killing somebody simply because of intolerance for the victim's culture is different than killing somebody for selling beat vials.
 
redhotswami said:
But I think if the government declares the gay community a protected class of citizens, that would encourage more tolerance.

It would also be completely unconstitutional.
 
Chart from the article:

GayHateCrimes.gif


Curious what the anti-hetero hate crimes and who committed them were.
 
I don't know anything about the US constitution but as an issue of individual rights having disproportionate punishment for the same crime on the basis of the type of hatred behind it or some character innate to the victim being proscribed seems very wrong.

Murdering somebody is the ultimate deprivation of liberty and ammount of harm to do to another indiviudal; that in itself should be the crime, discretion may be applicable in sentencing due to circumstance or the viciousness of an attacker and their motive but it shouldn't be codified.
 
In Canada it would never fly to declare gays a protected group of citizens with different victims rights under criminal law. It would be so blatantly contrary to the Charter.

It goes against basic ideas of equality. I'm against hate crimes because it sets up a duality in the criminal system which I don't really believe has a rational objective.
 
anitram said:
In Canada it would never fly to declare gays a protected group of citizens with different victims rights under criminal law. It would be so blatantly contrary to the Charter.

It goes against basic ideas of equality. I'm against hate crimes because it sets up a duality in the criminal system which I don't really believe has a rational objective.

Fair enough. But it is different here in the US for all sorts of reasons. There were quite a few cross burnings going on, in the United States, which is I think why this policy was created in the first place across different states. This policy was intended to protect people who were being attacked because of their identity/culture/etc.

I don't think hate crimes are unique to other crimes. They are domestic terrorism. It isn't just the one person that is the victim, it is an attack on that entire community that shares that person's identity.
 
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