MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17745016/from/RS.3/
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.