Fighting Gay and Lesbian Hate Crime

In the current period of history, gay and lesbian people have to deal with a lot of hatred and contempt. Hatred manifests in many criminal ways whether obviously criminal or the less obviously criminal. Obvious crimes are assault leading to grievous bodily harm and/or death. Less obvious crimes are gossip campaigns that bring a person to destitution and a slow lingering death, excluded from the community. Hate even exists between gay people who differ in their gay expression, such as the main stream gay communities lack of support for transgender gay people. The sources and history are varied, but what we need to learn is to overcome and end this hatred. This is no easy task, nor can it be accomplished overnight. It has taken many people a long time to make progress measured by the inch and this in an atmosphere of confusion and peer pressure. Given all our human species intelligence, it is a wonder that we still hate across the spectrum of difference. The main problem when it comes to this hatred is ignorance and the refusal to learn new ways, preferring ignorance and darkness. For many it is hard to leave "tried and true" ways for unknown ways. In the face of religious and political propaganda that stands in the face of sexual liberation, the path to tolerance is difficult and fraught with peril. Recently, the battle has taken to the internet on the Facebook site.

Hatred manifests in the practical in the form of being excluded from the economy, whether being able to secure a job, renting an apartment, buying a house and property, going into various businesses or even to church. At worst there is entrapment, torture and death, all for being different. This manifests in virtually every country and region. Though some countries are moving in a more tolerant direction, some are steadfastly immobile or actually going the other way such as in Iran and Uganda.

Gays often turn on each other for reasons such as along lines of transgender, butch and fem, cross dressing, rich and poor and so on and this is counterproductive to the way against gay people outside of the gay community. Gay people are going to have to learn to tolerate differences among themselves if they are to fight hate directed at the gay community from the religious right, the conservatives and political oppressors. This is a very necessary first step if gay people are to organize against killing hatred. Gay people have to organize a counter propaganda. It is not enough to have a gay week and a parade once a year as we have to deal with life in a hostile environment year round. Handling gay pride this way is similar to being kind to people on Christmas day, but treating them in an awful manner every other day. Hiding is not an effective strategy for the long term. We live in a divide and conquer society where fear and hatred of the different runs across many lines of difference in humanity. Control of a large number of people is usaully accomplished with terror.

Gay people have to overcome self shame that has been programmed into them by all the anti-gay propaganda that exists in profusion. Nature is all about difference and adaptation to a wide spectrum of specific conditions. As part of nature, humanity is no different and gay people are part of that spectrum. In the animal kingdom, there exists a counterpart to the gay community, but there is no prejudice here. Animals have no problem in this area and people are regarded as being more intellectually developed and superior, but do have a problem here. As gay people are not obvious like the color divide, they can use subterfuge and hide to avoid being attacked. In the eyes of some, this survival tactic is lying. But camouflage as it proliferates in nature, is a form of deception to confuse the predator to allow survival of the camouflaged individual and thence the ability to pass on successful survival traits to the next generation. The first step for gay people is to build bridges with those in the straight community who are confident with their own sexual orientation and have no secret to hide from others. All to often, anti-gay attacks come from those who are confused and have negative beliefs about their own sexuality.

Gay people must build strong friendships with those in a variety of communities, for in unity comes strength and having some advocates in the right places is helpful. It will help in the greater struggle. There are those who will not be persuaded for any reason, even if they themselves are gay. There are at least two prominent pop-religious anti-gay bigots who fell from grace on account of being gay themselves.

Gay people with their allies must then loudly publicize where hate in all its expression is being performed. They must expose the hypocrisy of "tough love" that has no love except the love of power. They need to drive out hatred with education and encourage understanding. Humanity has a problem with hatred and prejudice and fighting hatred directed against gay people is one step in eliminating hatred and crimes associated with it. This is also a good step to eliminate hatred in general.