- “What’s the easiest way to turn a fruit into a vegetable?” this cartoon in Notre Dame’s student newspaper asked. Answer: “A baseball bat.” The newspaper later apologized.
We’ll have more on that anti-gay hate crime in Oak Lawn over the weekend in Friday’s Voice, but for now I wanted to share a note I received from William Waybourn, who was a pioneering gay-rights activist in Dallas and now lives in the Washington, D.C. area. Waybourn, who helped start Crossroads Market and served as president of the Dallas Gay Alliance, went on to found the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and lead the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. He now lives on the side of a mountain about an hour west of D.C. and, coincidentally, a mile or so from my parents. Anyhow, Waybourn recalls that this isn’t the first time gay men have been attacked in the Cedar Springs area with baseball bats. Here’s his note:
I don’t recall the exact details, but bashing gays with baseball bats around Cedar Springs and Throckmorton is not new. Nor has there ever been much interested in classifying these crimes as hate crimes.
The first incident I recall was an AIDS educator who got bashed in the parking lot behind (then) Crossroads Market and the food pantry. His assailants were never caught and as far as I recall, the crime was never solved. The kid didn’t die as a direct result of the attack, but he never recovered physically (or mentally). Unknown to anyone at the time, he had AIDS and the bashing complicated his physical health to a great extent. His official cause of death was AIDS. Had he been in the military and wounded, his subsequent “unrelated” death would have qualified him for a hero’s burial, as they are adding names of individuals wounded in the Vietnam War who died later from pneumonia, et al.
It seems that Dallas has a high number of baseball bat cases. Maybe they should quit giving them away at Rangers’ bat nights.
Waybourn isn’t alone in his recollections about baseball bats and gay-bashings in Dallas. Nancy Weinberger, a longtime local crime watch leader, sent out a note last night about this weekend’s incident.
“This is not the first time I have heard of baseball bats being thrown around in Oak Lawn,” Weinberger said in the message to Oak Lawn crime watch members.
The apparent prevalence of baseball bats being used in violent acts against gays may have prompted the student newspaper at Notre Dame University to run a cartoon in January making light of the phenomenon.
The newspaper later apologized for the cartoon, which is shown above.
Maybe we should all start flooding the Notre Dame student newspaper with links to the hate crime story so they can see how funny their little cartoon was. Even though they have apologized, they still need to see that actions have consequences, and this can be directly attributed to their little joke. I would even go as far as saying they have blood in their hands.
You know, I pray for crap like this to happen to me! I mean, I am a retired Los Angeles Police officer and my “partner” and I have talked about things like this. We usually say, “well IF” we are attacked-he calls 911 and stays on the phone line with the police dispatcher and discribes in detail what he sees. I on the other hand will have little problem dealing with these donky’s. After all, it is not as if somebody has NEVER TRIED to kill me in the past-that’s why I STILL carry a .45 with me where ever we go.
The way I see it-it will be his dumb luck that he brought a baseball bat to a gunfight! These idiots don’t think that “cops” are gay and we DO CARRY our weapons with us. I can see the head line in the Dallas media, “gay officer shoots and kills gay bashe with baseball bat”
Most of those in my peer group are NOT squimish about using this type of force on attackers like this
AMEN John! Show ’em what LAPD can do!
LAPD has a nasty reputation for being a bit “agressive” and we usually always have a plan of some sort. I know alot of gay coppers and to us-this very sort of crime is “give me”. Even in Texas I have met a few folks with this mind set-I wished that more GLBT’s took advantage of their 2nd Ammendment rights and would arm themselves for this very reason.
If the hate mongers knew that they ran the risk of getting their butts shot-it would have a chilling effect on them. To many people wanna sit back and say “well they should not do this-its wrong” NO KIDDING-SO WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT!???
I never go looking for trouble-it’s about being ready for trouble when it comes looking for me-or in this case “US”! I am not “weak kneed” about visiting violence upon another who would do me harm.
I don’t know the details but surmise these cowards wait inside a parked car, charge a passing pedestrian and run away. Love to see a Charles Bronson episode ensue in the hood.