1,000 Turn Out to Vigil for Gay Man Killed in Toronto Hit-and-Run

A crowd estimated at around 1,000 turned out for a vigil in honor of Christopher Skinner, a 27-year-old gay man in Toronto who was beaten by a group of people in an SUV and then run over and killed while walking home from a birthday party last week.

Late last week, authorities held a press conference at which they released images of the SUV they believed killed Skinner. Authorities are not sure what the motivation behind the murder was, but they have some theories they are floating. Based on a security camera video, police say Skinner may have accidentally touched the SUV while hailing a cab, inspiring the violent attack which took his life.

It's also entirely possible that a group of kids, emboldened by alcohol, saw a vulnerable looking guy they perceived to be gay trying to hail a cab on the street, stopped, beat the crap out of him because of hatred for gays, and then ran him over.

Watch scenes from the vigil and interviews with Skinner's friends, AFTER THE JUMP...

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Self-assessment, right of gays to donate blood at issue in Canadian court case: "Kyle Freeman, 36, relied on his own self-assessment that he wasn't infected with any sexually transmitted diseases when he lied about having sex with men on a donor-screening questionnaire...Freeman is suing the agency, claiming he didn't answer the question truthfully because Canadian Blood Services violated his Charter right to equality regardless of his sexual orientation when it asked him whether he had ever had sex with other men, even once, since 1977. The discovery Freeman had syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease that can damage the heart, brain and eyes if left untreated, was made only after Canadian Blood Services screened his donated blood."

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Gay Couple Detained in Dubai 28 Days for Arthritis Drug Celebrex

This sounds hellish:

"Rocky Sharma and Stephen Macleod, who have been together for 10 years, were stopped upon arrival in Dubai on Aug 2, where they planned to spend the day before returning to Toronto from a vacation in India. Macleod had a bottle of the prescription arthritis medication Celebrex in his suitcase. They were told Celebrex is a controlled substance in UAE and, even though they did not present themselves to border officials as a couple, both partners were detained. 'I think they thought we were gay and we would have some party drugs with us,' says Sharma, who is now safely back at home with his partner. 'They were definitely targeting people who are young, from the western world and nicely dressed, like they are going to party.'"

Sharma and Macleod were not given an opportunity to contact a lawyer or the Canadian embassy (which they managed to do before their phone was confiscated), slept on the floor in a filthy prison cell and ate rice, were kept separate with no communication except through a case worker from the Canadian consulate, and were held an additional 11 days after being declared innocent.

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