Garbanzo Toons

If a Gay Man Dies, Is it a Hate Crime?

According to this Detroit Free Press article,

As the story went, Andrew Anthos was beaten to death in February for simply being gay.

But it was arthritis -- not hatred -- that ultimately led to the death of the 72-year-old Detroiter, the Wayne County medical examiner told the Free Press on Wednesday.

The Detroit Police Department said it has accepted that Anthos died of natural causes and closed its investigation, saying no witnesses have been found to confirm a beating.

However,

It is a decision that has surprised and upset his family and a growing list of gay-rights advocates and politicians who cited his death to promote the prosecution of hate crimes based on sexual orientation.

"That sickens me," said Athena Fedenis, the dead man's cousin and the person who widely promoted the account that Anthos was taunted and beaten by an assailant with a pipe. It is an account she said she heard directly from her cousin as he lay dying in a Detroit hospital. "They're going to say it didn't happen?'

because,

Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, implicated religious conservatives soon after the death.

"The hatred and loathing that led to the vicious murder of Andrew Anthos only because he was gay is not innate," Foreman said in a statement. "Instead it is being taught every day by leaders of the so-called Christian right and their political allies."

Bummer for Mr. Foreman. Reality doesn't fit his twisted world veiw in which those accursed right wing Christians spend their days arguing about the best way to execute gay men. I have to wonder if Mr. Forman sees the death of every homosexual as a right wing inspired plot.

According to doctors,

Wayne County Medical Examiner Dr. Carl Schmidt said Anthos succumbed to a degenerative condition, known as spinal stenosis, that developed and worsened over many years.

Schmidt said that his condition, which narrows the spine and compresses the spinal cord and nerves, caused him to suddenly lose the use of his legs that night and fall. Following surgery, the paralysis spread through his body, ultimately resulting in respiratory failure.

Schmidt said his examination of Anthos did not support the widely reported accounts that Anthos was attacked outside his Detroit apartment after leaving a city bus. Police said they could not find evidence that a pipe-wielding assailant shouted antigay slurs.

and

it was likely a simple movement, not a whack on the head, that felled the man, Schmidt said.

"He probably just flexed his neck," which caused arthritic spurs to compress his spinal cord enough to cause paralysis of his legs. After spinal surgery in the hospital, that numbness later spread to his upper body and caused Anthos to stop breathing, Schmidt said.

The only injury noted in the autopsy was a 2-inch-wide bruise on the back of Anthos' head, which likely came when he fell, Schmidt said. The injury was minor, he said.

A CT scan "of his head disclosed no skull fracture, no injury to the brain, no bleeding to the brain," Schmidt said.

But who are you going to believe, an experienced doctor, or your own ideology of victimhood?

Also twisting the story, but in her own subtle way, to maintain the sacred aura of victimhood, is Detroit Free Press columnist Desiree Cooper.

Now, with the possibility that he died from natural causes, I can't help but recall the Rev. Al Sharpton after the Tawana Brawley scandal. In 1987, the nation was outraged when Brawley, an African-American teenager, accused six white men of raping her, covering her body with feces and racial epithets and leaving her for dead.

After all the high emotions and investigations, it was ruled that she'd faked the whole thing.

And so, all of that righteous indignation was squandered.

Ah, yes, Al Sharpton, squanderer of rightous indignation, rabble rouse, Jew hater; since those days elevated to the exalted position of "spokesman". My final farewell to the Democratic party came when he was taken seriously as a presidential candidate by the Democrats, with no mention being made of Tawana Brawley or his history of anti-semitism and race baiting. I remember silently begging Joe Leiberman through the TV to confront this creep, but in that instance, he comformed to party orthodoxy. From this, one would think that Ms. Cooper is calling for readers to wake up and smell the reality. But Ms. Cooper doesn't want to waste another dose of rightous indignation. She continues,

But this is not an elaborate hoax; Anthos has gone. Today there may be questions about how he died, but there's no question about how he lived -- as a gay man often weathering hideous acts of unspeakable hatred.

His death, however it happened, has engendered positive change. Just last week, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, introduced legislation to include crimes based on sexual orientation in federal hate-crime legislation.

State Sen. Hansen Clarke, D-Detroit, plans to do the same at the state level.

Such legislation would not only help track the incidence of hate crimes against gays, but it would allow more resources to be put into the investigation of those crimes

So there it is, folks, heroic legislators are going to bat to protect gay men from us. You and I will no longer be able to freely engage in "hideous acts of unspeakable hatred". We will be forced to cheer for the Gay Pride Parade as it passes our house. We will have to write scholarly reports on our favorite episodes of Will and Grace. We will have to shop with the "Queer Eye" guys. We will all have rainbows in our windows. No longer will we have to read the daily news reports of poor, abused gay men "weathering hideous acts of unspeakable hatred". It's going to be a brave new pink rainbow colored world. Of course, gay men will continue to be "gay men" rather than people. Otherwise how will we know who the latest victims are?

Labels: Al Sharpton, Andrew Anthos, Desiree Cooper, gays as victims

posted by Harry @ 12:14 PM