Violence Towards Homosexuals in the United states

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Violence Towards Homosexuals in the United states
By Lloyd McCarthy
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The Matthew Shepard Case
Matthew Shepard, 21 was beaten to death in
Casper, Wyoming for being a homosexual. He was
lured from a campus bar on October 7 1998, by two
men who told him they were gay. They tied him to
a fence and tortured, beat, and pistol whipped
him and left him to die. He was spotted by a
cyclist and put in the hospital. He died on
October 12th 1998.
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Billy Gaither
On February 19th 1999, two men killed Billy
Gaither for being gay. They were offended by his
advances on them. So one night they drove to a
bar where they collected him. They drove him into
the woods where they beat him to death with axe
handles and burned his body.
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Danny Overstreet
Danny Overstreet was killed on September 22 2000
when a man who was looking to kill some gay
people, walked into a gay bar and opened fire
killing him and injuring 6 others.
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Barry Winchell
Barry Winchell, 21 was beaten to death by other
soldiers while he was sleeping on July 5 1999 for
being gay.
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Why?
Each of these people were murdered for choosing
to have different preferences from other people.
These crimes should have been approached as a
murder and a hate crime, the senseless killing of
people. But rather it was looked at very
controversially, the murderers in most cases were
thought to have done the right thing by certain
conservative parties and by people of certain
religions, Christians in particular are often
quite vehement against homosexuals. If you look
at the dates you will see that these things are
still happening. To many people view homosexuals
as a social wrong, this way gay people cannot
stand up for their rights of free choice. People
are constantly trying to make homosexuality
illegal. How would people feel if a certain
religion was banned? No one would stand for it.
But a lot of people dont mind oppression of
homosexuals because they have not stood up for
themselves. And they can not and will not until
social attitudes change.
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A prejudice history
Homosexuals have been shown prejudice almost
since history began. Homosexuals have always been
viewed as social deviants and monsters. As a
rule people need to have someone who is worse
than they are so they can feel better about
themselves. Since no one makes themselves very
apparent, they have to take matters into their
own hands to make these people. The best people
to do this with are different people and
homosexuals were a prime target... Discrimination
in this way, towards a racial group would be met
with a huge public upcry. Whereas everyone says
thats gay
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Historical Prejudice Groups
The Christian church has had a long history of
discrimination and the bible said that gay people
were wrong, so they discriminated. The Nazis
needed someone to blame, so they took homosexuals
to the concentration camps as well as Jews. As
well as discriminating against blacks, the Ku
Klux Klan also discriminated against gays as
well.
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Modern Prejudice
Even now, you see people protesting against gay
marriages on a religious basis, despite the
constitution declaring the separation of church
and state. They want to discriminate by using
something from their religion which may or may
not be right, therefore declaring that their
religion is the only right one. People who are
against gay marriages want to make an amendment
in the constitution defining marriage as between
a man and a woman. They hate gay people because
they are different and that is the basis of human
nature to hate what is different.
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Food For Thought
If you discriminated against any other group of
people, like a race or religion no one would
stand for it. But you see everyone using gay as
some sort of swear word. The reason gay people
are not trying to stop this sort of thing, is
because there is such a societal prejudice
against them that they do not want to stand up
because so many people would hurt them or
discriminate. So many groups are against them
that they are afraid for their lives. What kind
of place is the world if you are afraid for you
life for being different in a way that is not
illegal.
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Conclusion
In conclusion, homosexuals have been shown
prejudice throughout history. This can often lead
to violence and death as shown in the first few
slides. When you leave I ask that you think when
you say thats so gay or call someone a fag.
For people who think that homosexuality is wrong
from biblical context, do you think God supports
slavery? Many people used the bible to defend
their keeping of slaves.
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