Wednesday, July 1, 2009

A Tale of Two Police Departments

On the one hand, we have the Fort Worth Police Department, responding to the raid of a Fort Worth gay bar called the Rainbow Lounge. Seven men were arrested and one was sent to the ICU for a brain injury. Police called it a routine bar raid, but this was police chief Jeff Halstead's response, however:
"You're touched and advanced in certain ways by people inside the bar, that's offensive," he said. "I'm happy with the restraint used when they were contacted like that."
Oh, what? So you can attack someone if you're touched inappropriately -- isn't that called the gay panic defense?

Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, a gay man was followed and gay slurs were shouted by a group of Somali youth that included "I hate gay people," and "Fuck gay people," as reported by Joe.My.God. and demonstrated in this YouTube video:

Please note the almost Zen-like restraint the gay man uses while being followed down the streets. The Minneapolis Police Department, in response to accusations that the man was seen in the video passing possible local police officials, released this statement (again, thanks to Joe.My.God.):
June 30, 2009 ( MINNEAPOLIS ) Currently, there is a video on YouTube of an incident that occurred sometime during the Minneapolis Gay Pride Festival. There has been some speculation that Minneapolis Police Officers were in that video. The Minneapolis Police Department wants to assure the public that those security officers who casually walk by during this incident were not from our department. We have a strict uniform policy and those were not our uniforms or our police officers. This is unacceptable behavior that would not be tolerated by the Minneapolis Police. Action would have been taken immediately to stop the harassment that is depicted in the video. We want all people, no matter of color, race, creed or sexual orientation to feel safe and welcome while they are in the city of Minneapolis. PIO contact for this incident is Sgt Jesse Garcia III.
Which one represents tolerance, understanding, and an attempt to make things right; and which represents idiocy and homophobia? I'll let you decide.

2 comments:

Quimbob said...

wow
This would have made the news if it gays taunting a Somali.....
Anyway, I love how NONE of the passers by did anything.
FWIW, I would assume the phrase, "gay's not the way" was probably learned at a church of some kind.

Anonymous said...

If this guy was black I don't believe the black guys would have said anything. I think it's the color of his skin and not his gayness. I've had things said to me in downtown cincy and I truly believe that it's skin color and nothing else. My opinion and I'm entitled to it.