I'm growing ever more shocked at just how incompetent gay men are at keeping themselves safe. One would think that with all the hate crimes reports and the details involved, more gay men would always carry a gun with them...

I don't think blaming the victims will solve anything here, Lucrece.

This is pretty atrocious, Michael.

It was more of an observation rather than placement of blame. I just wish some people would wake up to the reality of the world and would take all measures to keep themselves safe. I am pretty tired of reading hate crime after hate crime, especially from Terrance's project, in which the outcome would have been different if the victims had taken preventive measures. It seems that many gay men have the delusion that, just because they can now be more open in some circumstances, they won't be targets of the common straight man self-validation ritual that is the act of gay bashing.

GLBT folk are often caught by surprise at the beginning of election periods when the decibel level of bigotry gets boosted 'ultra high decibel' range. Using prostituted ministers, pastors, bishops, mullahs, preachers and priests the bigot politicians of both parties use their opposition to same sex marriage to pander to bigots. Obama and Romney are probably the worst, but they all contribute to the steady drumbeat of bigotry, even if they’re somewhat more muted. The net effect of the increase in bigoted remarks is a net increase in the number of gay bashings.

If you look at statistics from the National Coalition of Antiviolence Programs and the FBI you'll see that there’s usually a marked upswing in beatings and lynchings around election time. You can see the stats at http://www.ncavp.org/ and http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm scroll down to hate crimes.

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