Word: gays
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...make the mistake, when in Barcelona, of assuming you're in Spain: The locals in the enchanting Mediterranean coastal city, and the triangle-shaped territory around it, cite Catalan as their national identity. In conversations across the spectrum - young and old, leftist and right-wing, gay and straight, a retired couple near Tarragona and a Moroccan immigrant in Vic - the upcoming Spanish elections are discussed as if they're taking place in a foreign country. "For Catalonia, it is better if?" was how the typical response began. Here, road signs and restaurant menus are written in Catalan. It's also...
...course, King wasn't just teased - he was put to death. But GLSEN has found that the frequency of anti-gay harassment and assault at schools has dropped steady through this decade. Fully 57% of gay and transgender students now say they are comfortable raising gay and transgender issues in class, and 71% have discussed those issues with a teacher at least once. Perhaps the most encouraging statistic: 57% of all students in public schools now say they know a kid who is gay; 20% have "a close personal friend" who is gay. Those numbers were unimaginable even 20 years...
...reading about the King tragedy I was reminded of Robert Kolker's fascinating New York magazine piece last fall about the case of Anthony Fortunato, who was sentenced to seven to 21 years in prison for his role in the death of Michael Sandy, a 29-year-old gay New Yorker. Fortunato and three friends lured Sandy from a gay chatroom to their neighborhood with the promise of sex. Instead they wanted to rob him, and they beat him up and chased him onto a parkway where...
Fortunato, who was 20 at the time of the crime, was charged with a hate crime, but in court a wrinkle emerged: he said he is bisexual and had visited gay chatrooms for sex many times. As a bisexual who had regular sex with men, did Fortunato really hate gay men? So much so that he would target one for robbery and beating? Possibly. As Kolker wrote, "Lots of gay hate crimes are committed by confused, self-loathing gay people." Or was it more likely that Fortunato picked Sandy for robbery merely because he knew a convenient place...
...reports are at variance with the writer's own conclusions from studying the same statistics. Also, the story originally described the second GLSEN report as "released the same year," that is, in 2005, but GLSEN says it was released in 2006. Lastly, the story originally reported that 22% of gay and transgender students who claimed that they had been assaulted because of their sexual orientation said the incident wasn't serious enough to report; the actual figure...