23 year old woman nearly beaten to death in Alabama for being a lesbian

[lynnvinc]

I think it is important when Catholics speak against homosexual behavior and gay marriage that they also in very strong terms condemn violence and hatred against gays (and point out that is a much graver sin). As Gandhi said, hate the sin, not the sinner.

I very rarely hear Catholics doing that – they just rant against homosexuals, without mentioning how we are not to hate them and are not to violently attack them. That goes for priests too – the one’s I’ve heard never precaution against attacking or hating gays. We cannot assume this is understood. People are at different levels of moral development. Some hear gays do evil and they figure gays are evil, and it is their duty to attack or kill them – to help purge the world of such evil.

In a similar vein I remember how after 9/11 some youth attacked and killed someone he thought was an Arab (if I recall the person was a Sikh, whom people often confuse with Arabs bec of their distinctive turbins). When they arrested him he was greatly confused as to why they arrested him, since he though he had done the good and right thing. And there would have been a lot more of that had not Pres. Bush gone to the mosque and made an appeal not to attack Muslims.

It is extremely important that our Church leaders speak out against hatred, violence, and mistreatment of gays and others engaged in sinful activities. In this particular case I think it may have been a non-Catholic who attacked the woman (the religion was not mentioned), but I’ve heard of cases in which it is Catholics who do so.

There is also the issue of high rate of suicide among gay youth…

 

[Robertanthony]

I think we all understood pretty quickly that the young man who did this was not an MIT graduate. We’re dealing with an evil, sick, vicious, probably dumb sub-human with a less than enviable genetic makeup. IMHO her sexual orientation is not fundamentally the reason per se why he attacked her, it’s more likely because he’s a hateful timebomb looking high and low for reasons to explode. If it hadn’t been her, it would have been his girlfriend for talking to a guy or a motorist who would have cut him off on the road. Prayers for the victim.

 

[april32010]

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/skitched-20121126-175023.jpg

 

[SamH]

I think we all understood pretty quickly that the young man who did this was not an MIT graduate. We’re dealing with an evil, sick, vicious, probably dumb sub-human with a less than enviable genetic makeup. IMHO her sexual orientation is not fundamentally the reason per se why he attacked her, it’s more likely because he’s a hateful timebomb looking high and low for reasons to explode. If it hadn’t been her, it would have been his girlfriend for talking to a guy or a motorist who would have cut him off on the road. Prayers for the victim.

Given what I’ve read I doubt it would have made a difference if she were a man or a woman “dating” his sister.

 

[maryjk]

I’m being lead to believe this has less to do with a person targeting someone over their sexuality but rather someone **who is just overall toxic.
**
EDIT: The kind of beating that was sustained has to be tried as attempted murder.

Exactly.

 

[fnr]

Hate crime and “persecution”…
This is it for real.

And never, never, never, never, justified.

There’s been research to show that people who appear to be outside the social norms are more likely to be victims of crime. There was just recently a study done by a criminologist, Patrick Kincade, testing whether the amount of money stolen in car washes depended on whether the car appeared to be driven by someone who seemed “deviant.” The car was tested with and without evidence of “deviance” – a copy of Maxim magazine and crushed beer cans on the floor.

Here’s the abstract from the study:

“The present study examines the applicability of routine activities theory to petty theft. Using an experimental field research design, the researchers tested the frequency with which apparently uncounted smaller currency was stolen during full-service car wash cycles. Experimental conditions were varied so that one condition suggested a more deviant driver. A considerable amount of money was removed in thirty percent of all car washes. The number of total thefts and amount of money stolen were higher in the experimental condition in which the driver appeared to be more deviant. Findings suggest that the mere appearance of the victim as more deviant triggers the perception of targets as more suitable, and provide support for social proximity as a suitability criterion.”

Here’s an NPR news story on the study, which is easy to read:
wbur.org/npr/164974490/reading-maxim-can-make-you-a-target-for-thieves

I guess one question is whether how we portray homosexuality as a “heteronormative” and sometimes homophobic culture makes it more likely that LGBT individuals become victims of crime. If you think of the monikers used to describe gay people, it certainly is possible that our culture is portraying them as “deviant” and sub-human.

On this forum, I have seen examples of Catholics talking about homosexuality and “deviant” sexuality in ways I think are respectful. I have also seen examples of people speaking disrespectfully. Here’s a “good” example (IMHO):

St. Francis of Assisi Church in my city has a LGBT Ministry, among it’s incredible array of ministries to help the poor, afflicted and alienated. Bravo for them! Love and compassion are key to the Christian life. Not matter what sin a human being has, we are to love the sinner, and be supportive so that the sinner will be able to examine their own conscience and strive for peace within themselves and their Creator.

We should not say, as Jesus said, 'let me take that splinter out of your eye, when there is a tree in our own eye. We are all sinners, and have fallen short of God’s righteousness.

Here’s a bad quote (from someone now banned from CAF):

i find it funny how its all equality for gays but life in prison for pedophile so on, i graduated criminology and from what i read on the subject its out of there control and they cant help it, so tell me how gays should be treated one way but you throw others for the same thinking in jail instead of getting help?

Note that in the latter, “gays” are comparable to pedophiles. The logic in this sentence suggests that homosexual people should be jailed (I’ll simply point out that there’s a difference between voluntary behavior by two adults and quasi-voluntary behavior among an adult and a child).

I think that the vast majority of Catholics act in love, and live their faiths in a manner that shows love. The first quote is an excellent example thereof. However, statements like the second quote portray gays as worthy of legal punishment. As disturbed as the perpetrator appears to be, he would seem to be able to justify his action as vigilante justice.

 

[robwar]

Quoting from the news article:

o.0

With that context in mind (and setting aside the issue of not pressing charges), why did the victim’s girlfriend take her to the family Thanksgiving? The article says she tried to dissuade the victim from attending. So why didn’t the two of them both stay away from that toxic and violent environment, and celebrate Thanksgiving on their own?

More reason to stay away from that family

I think you hit the nail on the head. If there were problems before, why was it not reported and why would they go to the home with the potential of this brother (probably angry over his sister being gay) attacking the partner? This is obviously not staged and should not have happen at all but common sense would be to stay aways from harm or trouble.
It would be akin to walking alone at night in the worst neighbor for crime and then getting upset that your person was attacked. There is no excuse to beat up another person but there seems to be a lack of common sense here as well.

 

[Rence]

This is sad. I sometimes worry that people who are against gay marriage will take this too far and do things like this. Fortunately though I think people who are like this and beat up gays are in the minority.

Yeah, but bullies are going to bully someone, whether it’s a lesbian or a Jew, or single mother, or a mentally challenged individual, or that homeless person on the street, or that scrupulous kid in school, etc. . Bullies are bullies and they’ll bully anyone who can’t fight back. And of course, they’re the most powerful in a group.