07/19/2005
In Northern Ireland, a 20-year-old gay man in Londonderry battles violent bigots: "I was just going to the shop yesterday and my face was smashed with a bottle. It was a gang of hooligans aged about 16 to 18 standing around drinking and they were shouting 'queers and faggots out of Carnhill'. A while later I got a phone call to my mobile phone. It sounded like an older man and he said that this (attack) had been just a warning and if I did not get out by midnight, they were going to petrol bomb the flat."
A gay activist has been murdered in Mexico in an apparent hate crime. Amnesty International struggling with the "institutionalized homophobia" of Mexico's justice system.
Posted 10:09 AM EST by Andy Towle in Elsewhere | Permalink
Like it?
Subscribe to FREE Towleroad daily headlines with our RSS feed!
RECENT STORIES:
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
Violent bigots in Ireland? No, say it can't be so...
Just as there are racists in the Gay community, the put-upon Irish have their share of homophobes and racists. Sadly, many oppressed groups have to find someone beneath them to oppress to make them feel superior.
In the 19th century, Irish immigrants to the US at first allied themselves with free blacks (a la "No dogs, no Irishmen Allowed"), however, that changed when they realized that by their increasing numbers and votes they could become "white." The Draft Riots of the 1860s were a horrible rampage of Irish through NYC lynching blacks (the accounts are sickening) in protest of being drafted into the Union Army.
I recommend "How the Irish Became White."
Posted by: Greg | Jul 19, 2005 11:58:13 AM
I am still constantly shocked by some North Americans views of a 'Romantic Ireland'. This case may help explain to some people the current 'situation' in Northern Ireland. Sure, there are religious and social differences but for the most part the so-called 'troubles' are initiated by a bunch of adolescent (or at least mentally), uneducated thugs with nothing better to do than to release their negativity with life on those unfortunate and 'different' enough to cross their path. It's only when these events hit the headlines that they are labelled as 'sectarian incidents'. This is according to many friends I have, both Catholic and Protestant who have lived in these affected areas. What these troublemakers need is some education, maturity and something to alleviate their boredom.
Posted by: Cyparissus | Jul 19, 2005 6:02:18 PM